For thousands of low- and moderate-income Ohioans, free tax preparation assistance is increasingly available this tax season. Seven Ohio coalitions, with dozens of free tax sites, received grants from the Internal Revenue Service to participate in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. The VITA program provides free tax preparation
Northeast Ohio needs new ways to help families — especially the most vulnerable among us who have the least — build assets so they can grow and protect their incomes. Asset-building strategies can be simple: a program that guides tax filers to buy savings bonds with their refunds, another that
The November elections yielded a new slate of policymakers across Ohio. Given that 2009 marked Ohio’s 15th straight year of record home foreclosure filings, it is critical that future policymakers spend more time on this issue. Given Cleveland’s dubious place at the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis, it is essential
On March 21, the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held a hearing on predatory mortgages, payday loans, and foreclosures that plague inner-city America. This was be the first in a series of hearings Subcommittee Chairman Kucinich plans to hold looking at various
The number of payday lending shops in Ohio catapulted from 107 locations in 1996 to 1562 locations in 2006, a more than fourteen-fold increase in a decade, according to this report from Policy Matters Ohio and the Housing Research and Advocacy Center. The report finds that payday lending shops are
More working families in Cuyahoga County received free tax preparation at volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) sites in 2006 than in any previous year. The Cuyahoga EITC Coalition filed more than 3,444 tax returns with nearly half qualifying for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The Coalition returned more than
As the federal income tax deadline nears, be careful about running to the nearest tax shop to get your taxes done. Why? Well, many paid preparers can take a large chunk of your refund by charging preparation fees and persuading you to purchase refund-anticipation loans and insurance on your return.
Trapped between a Hummer and another SUV, each with one passenger, I asked myself, “Are gas prices too low?” It’s true that, as this paper has reported, Ohio has seen a 30 percent jump in the per-gallon price of gasoline since December, and a 56 percent increase since April 2002.
Nothing right about this ‘cure’
It is a great thing when Ohio can point to a model law. The 40-year-old Consumer Sales Practices Act (CSPA), lauded for its broad and solid protections of Ohioans, is just that — one of the nation’s best preventions against fraud and unfair business practices. It was adopted after an