Maryland Governor’s Office for Children and the Office of the Comptroller of Maryland
December 2025 - June 2026
Why This Matters For Families
Refundable tax credits — including the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) — are one of the country’s most effective anti-poverty tools. Maryland is one of more than 30 states to augment the federal EITC with a state version of the credit, offering qualified residents up to $4,000 beyond the federal maximum refund. In addition, Maryland’s version of the credit extends the federal eligibility parameters to include filers without a Social Security number and childless filers under 25.
Implementation Challenge
Refundable tax credits are only available to people who file taxes, and many Maryland residents eligible for the EITC either do not file (often because they don’t make enough to be legally required to) or do not claim the credit on their return. During the 2025 filing season, the Office of the Comptroller of Maryland (COM) launched the EarnedIt campaign to raise awareness of this benefit and reduce the number of people who miss out.
Maryland did see an increase in EITC uptake during the 2025 season and sought to build on the success of the inaugural EarnedIt campaign by incorporating a data-driven approach in 2026.
Our Approach
NPL’s prior work with COM highlighted the potential to use data from other state benefits agencies to identify Maryland residents who are missing out on the EITC. Although the state hopes to test that approach in the future, COM needed interim internal solutions to incorporate data into the 2026 EarnedIt campaign.
As part of our work with COM, we:
Used internal COM data for targeted outreach to more than 44,000 residents likely missing out on the state EITC.
Conducted English and Spanish usability studies on the targeted letters and other materials like Maryland’s EITC website, social media messages, posters, and text messages.
Created a framework to assess the campaign’s effectiveness and to describe the results of the 2026 filing season.
Maryland’s efforts during the 2026 filing season greatly expanded EarnedIt’s footprint: visits to the state’s EITC website increased by 400%, the number of partner agencies doing EITC outreach expanded from four to 12, and text messaging was added as an outreach channel, sending messages to 370,000 people. In addition, the new targeted outreach component had promising results: 25% of prior filers who received a letter went on to claim the state EITC.
What We Learned
Maryland’s targeted outreach success should serve as a springboard for future efforts. Sharing data with other benefits agencies and leveraging the state’s integrated benefits platform could overcome the limitations of using internal tax data to find people who are missing the credit (e.g., non-filers, non-W2 or “gig” workers) while setting the stage for pre-populated tax returns.
To ensure these efforts are worthwhile, Maryland should also continue evaluating the impact of EarnedIt and other EITC uptake work using control groups and other best practices from the evaluation community.
Next Steps
NPL will continue to explore how Maryland can use data to increase EITC uptake and incorporate the EITC into the larger universe of benefits programs. For example, the state is currently implementing our recommendation to incorporate COM’s EITC eligibility checker into the integrated MD Benefits screener.
We may also partner with COM as they implement recent legislation to explore data sharing and to streamline the process for claiming the EITC.
