Connecticut taxpayers have less than a week to apply for a one-time rebate offering eligible low and middle income households $250 per child for up to three children before an application window closes at the end of July.
As of Friday, more than 171,500 households including more than 268,000 children had applied for the rebate since the state began accepting applications on June 1, according to the Revenue Services Department. That’s a little over half the Connecticut households expected to be eligible for the rebate.
In an email Friday, David Bednarz, a spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont, urged residents to apply for the rebate at the department’s website.
“We are quickly approaching the July 31 deadline to apply for this state tax rebate, and we strongly encourage all families who’ve claimed at least one dependent on their 2021 federal income tax returns to submit their applications to the Department of Revenue Services as soon as possible so that they can take advantage of this opportunity.”
To qualify, residents must have claimed at least one minor dependent child on their 2021 tax returns and meet certain income thresholds. Single filers will receive the full benefits if they made $100,000 or less. Married joint filers can qualify at $200,000 or less and head of household filers qualify at $169,000 or less. Residents who exceed those thresholds may still be eligible for a reduced rebate depending on their income.
In a statement, Revenue Services Commissioner Mark Boughton said his agency would be mailing another round of informational postcards to families believed to be eligible in the final week of the application period.
“With the start of school just around the corner, we hope that everyone who is eligible takes advantage of these dollars, which can help to ease the burden of school supply costs or any other expense our families are facing,” Boughton said. “Our department is urging everyone who is entitled to apply.”
Rep. Sean Scanlon, a Guilford Democrat who championed the program in the legislature, said the effort so far has been successful.
“We’re going to leave it all on the field in the next week to try to spread the word as much as possible and I think this has been a big success,” he said. “We’ll see where we end up but to have over half the people that are eligible actually proactively sign up, I think is a big success.”
Scanlon said around 13,000 households had submitted new applications in just the last week and past responses to tax amnesty programs suggest that the state tax department can expect a flood of applications in the final days of the application period.
However, Scanlon said he believes the state should consider a different approach to the application process if the program is extended in the future. This year, the state mailed postcards with information about the rebate to households believed to be eligible based on the most recently available tax information.
“I would try to send a check directly to everyone we knew had a kid and try to send a postcard or a message to people who had had one since,” Scanlon said. “But like everything, you learn a lesson. I think we learned a lesson here and as we look towards hopefully seeing this program continue we’ve learned a lot.”
