Resources for Departments of Revenue: Principles for More Effective Outreach to Residents During Tax Season
Nationwide
April 2026
Why This Matters for Families
Tax credits represent one of our country’s most effective anti-poverty tools — yet uptake is still a far cry from 100%. Awareness of tax credits is the first step toward helping filers get the benefits for which they qualify. In our 2025 survey on challenges in tax filing, 24% of respondents cited lack of tax credit awareness as a barrier. While awareness is rarely the only barrier, it’s a natural starting point: outreach doesn’t have to require extensive resources or policy changes, and evidence from the field shows that thoughtful campaigns can make a difference.
Implementation Challenge
As tax season ramps up, many states are racing to finalize messaging to residents encouraging them to claim the tax credits they’re owed — but interacting with the government can be stressful, and for many filers, opening a letter from a tax agency triggers immediate anxiety.
To best serve filers, state governments must focus communications on earning their trust, building their confidence, and reducing their anxiety through deliberately designed communications that are clear, action-oriented, and easy to follow.
When letters outline a course of action that feels doable, the burden feels lighter, and filers are more likely to take action.
Our Approach
Making things simple is hard work. Based on our experience working with states across the country on outreach methods, we developed a Tax Credit Outreach Letter Toolkit, meant to be an easy resource for state tax administrators to pull from. It provides some basic principles that can be applied, along with lots of examples. It’s meant to be a living document - as our team learns more, we plan to continue updating and refreshing this content.
OBJECTIVES
Develop a resource for states to turn to when drafting or updating their written outreach to filers
WHAT WE DID
Developed a quick reference toolkit built on leading practices from our own quantitative and qualitative research with filers, and experience working with state Departments of Revenue
What We Learned
1) Use plain language
Using plain language makes content clear, easy to understand, and welcoming to all filers. Plain language also plays a major role in preventing mistakes, earning trust, building confidence, and reducing anxiety. And it makes translations to other languages easier and higher quality.
This approach supports the widest range of filers, including people with low literacy or tax literacy, limited English proficiency, those who primarily use mobile devices or assistive technology, and those who are stressed or short on time.
In particular:
✓ Avoid complex words where simple ones will do
✓ Avoid or supplement jargon
✓ Be concise
✓ Talk directly to the user
2) Let complex information unfold
Outreach letters mainly need to help people quickly understand three things:
They might be eligible for tax credits
An estimate on how much they could receive in credits
What to do next
Other than answering those questions, including too many more details and broader contextual information about tax rules can overwhelm readers and cause them to miss important information or even stop reading. Start with the bottom line, then provide a clear path for filers who want or need more information. The goal is to provide just enough information, at the right time, to help people take action.
In particular:
✓ Think of content in sizes: bites (just a taste), snacks (a little more context), and meals (everything you need)
✓ Start with a BLUF (bottom line up front)
✓ Cut unnecessary details
3) Optimize for skimming
People don’t read, they skim — so make content easy to scan and act on. If you have perfect wording but it’s presented as a solid block of text, people will ignore it because it’s too intimidating and burdensome to parse. When content is easy to skim, it helps filers quickly get the gist, find the sections that matter to them, and dive deeper only where needed.
In particular:
✓ Use descriptive headings
✓ Use bullets
✓ Use tables
✓ Use text styles strategically
✓ Start with a conditional (If you _, then _)
✓ Avoid repeating information
4) Tailor content to the filer
Outreach is most effective when it’s personalized, connecting program rules to the filer’s situation. When filers can quickly see why they received a message and how it relates to them, they’re more likely to pay attention and consider it seriously.
In particular:
✓ Show the message is meant for the filer
✓ Translate policy into situation-specific guidance
5) Help filers take action
Outreach letters typically have one primary goal: to get the filer to take a specific action. To achieve that goal, next steps must be clear, simple, and approachable. Filers should also feel confident and certain about what to do, which increases the likelihood that they will complete the task.
In particular:
✓ Use active voice
✓ Lead with action verbs
✓ Have a clear call to action
✓ Make action steps visually clear
✓ Provide enough detail for filers to act with confidence
6) Proactively address common misunderstandings
Taxes are a particularly tricky topic to help people understand, and misunderstandings are common. Outreach should anticipate these tax literacy gaps and address them upfront.
Tax literacy is an equity issue – when filers don't understand, they're more likely to make mistakes, face an additional "time tax" to understand or fix errors, or miss out on important benefits they’re eligible for. Clear, accessible communication helps filers feel empowered, confident, and motivated to file, which reduces mistakes, expands benefit access, and provides peace of mind that they’ve met a legal requirement.
In particular:
✓ Explain basic tax concepts
✓ Connect tax credits to filing taxes
✓ Explain that you can file taxes – even if you didn’t work
✓ Clearly state that tax credits won’t impact other benefits
✓ Clearly state whether ITIN filers are eligible
✓ Be specific about what counts as work and income
✓ Explain why someone qualifies or doesn’t
7) Use a simple, direct voice
When a filer opens a letter from a tax agency, their first reaction is often to avoid dealing with it, anxiety, or distrust that the letter is a scam. It’s our job to earn both the filer’s attention and their trust so they can move from anxiety to action.
In particular:
✓ Balance being authoritative and attention grabbing
✓ Be positive and productive
Applying these principles
The Tax Credit Outreach Letter Toolkit builds on these ideas through practical guidance, examples, and templates.
But usability testing is critical: once Departments of Revenues have a draft, putting it in front of real filers is essential to revealing misunderstandings, trust concerns, or barriers to action that may not be obvious. When you have a letter (or multiple versions) you are ready to send, consider having a small “control” group that receives your original materials to see if your redesigned letter had an impact.
If you’d like support, our team at the New Practice Lab is here to help. We partner with state agencies at no cost to review letters, facilitate usability testing, and iterate on messaging. Contact us at npl-taxteam@newamerica.org to learn more.
