Your Illinois Tax Refund Could Get a $7,430 Boost

The deadline to file your 2023 taxes is about a month and a half away and if you've not filed yet, there's a potential for a huge refund boost of thousands of dollars.

Let's see if you qualify.

Millions of Tax Refund Dollars are Going Unclaimed

According to a press release from the Federal Reserve of Chicago, some estimates are showing as much as 4 billion dollars in tax refund dollars went left unclaimed in 2019.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC)

$1,500 is about the average EITC that is being left unclaimed by those who are eligible, which represents over $11 billion in tax refund money just in 2019 that wasn't claimed by our poorest eligible families.

Many families are aware that they are eligible for potentially large tax refunds, but they do not claim them mainly because of nonfinancial barriers to filing tax returns. -Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

About 22 percent of families that are eligible to receive an EITC or CTC payment don't get money, only because they didn't claim the credit.

In their press release, the Federal Bank of Chicago said that "an eligible family with two children under six and, say, $10,000 in income that does not file a tax return would effectively lose a total of $7,200 in CTC—$3,600 delivered in 2021 via advance payments and $3,600 received in 2022 as an income tax refund."

How to Get Up to the $7,430 Boost to Your Tax Refund

"Families with lower incomes or more children often qualify for the largest credits," according to Cleveland.com.

Low and moderate-income taxpayers could have a pop to their 2023 refund from $600 to an additional $7430 depending on the individual's financial circumstances.

To find out more about the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit so you can get the most from your refund, CLICK HERE.