Code For America Labs

Tax benefitsour tax benefits portfolio seeks to fundamentally change how americans with low or no incomes access the tax credits and flexible cash owed to them. Our goal is to close the $14 billion tax benefits uptake gap and simplify the tax filing process. In 2024, we:-simplified the tax filing process and helped people achieve the financial stability they deserve by continuing to provide getyourrefund. Getyourrefund is a free, trustworthy tax filing service developed in partnership with the irs and vita volunteer tax preparation partners as a digital platform for vita-assisted filing.-developed an integrated state filing strategy to complement federal direct file, in response to the irs's direct file announcement. We successfully partnered with state tax departments to implement simple, user-friendly, free tax filing for direct file users in arizona, idaho, maryland, north carolina, and new jersey.-advocated for policies that simplify the tax process. Shaped the national conversation about simplifying tax filing, publishing research and recommendations based on our experience running getyourrefund, getctc, and fileyourstatetaxes.-collaborated with partners across the country, providing information, outreach resources, and support to help them spread the word about getyourrefund and direct file. We primarily targeted snap, cash, wic and medicaid agencies, in addition to departments of revenue. As a result of our collaboration, 67+ agencies across 20 states took over 160 outreach actions and sent over 4.5m messages to clients.

Clear my recordwe work to fundamentally transform the process of clearing records by advancing automatic record clearance to eliminate barriers for people trying to move forward with their lives. In 2024, we:-supported policy campaigns in 8 states by integrating technical best practices for implementation into legislation and designing policy solutions that take into account government's existing technology and data availability. With these solutions, government agencies are more able to successfully implement policy once passed.-built 4 proofs of concept, technical solutions that solve for common implementation challenges we've seen across the country and shared these solutions with multiple government agencies to improve implementation and policy passage success.-continued to partner with the state of utah to clear convictions of eligible people. This work included helping the state identify records retroactively eligible, with 350k records cleared, as well as building the capacity of the state to identify records that will be eligible on an ongoing basis as they meet eligibility requirements.-supported 6 states in active implementation with continued technical advising support to enable more effective and efficient implementation processes. In addition, using processes we helped co-create, michigan and california continued successfully clearing records automatically; to date, the processes in these states have allowed millions of people to have their eligible records cleared.-created the advocate's guide to automatic record clearance, a resource to increase the overall capacity of the automatic record clearance movement. This guide helps advocates draft effective legislation that takes government implementation into account. By incorporating key strategies within the guide into policies, we can better ensure these policies can deliver impact over the long term.

Advancing economic mobility with local initiativewe are helping local governments and allied organizations achieve better outcomes for residents and improve local capability to use digital services. In 2024, we:-continued our partnership with shelby county and the city of memphis to demonstrate how to strengthen communities by empowering those who have been most disconnected.in 2024 we formalized our partnership with stakeholders across memphis, including working in partnership with risekit to design a digital platform to connect opportunity youth to cbos, employers, and government resources in memphis to advance educational and economic opportunity.