Blog post: South Carolina H.3492 EITC refundability reform

Summary

Create a blog post covering South Carolina H.3492, which modifies the state's existing 125% nonrefundable EITC match to make 25% of the excess credit refundable.

Bill details

SC H.3492 modifies the state's existing 125% nonrefundable EITC match. Currently, the credit is entirely nonrefundable, meaning low-income filers with little/no state tax liability lose most of the benefit. The bill makes 25% of the excess credit (the portion exceeding tax liability) refundable.

PolicyEngine analysis (tax year 2026)

• Cost: $403 million
• Benefits: 23.3% of South Carolina residents
• Poverty reduction: 2.1% overall
• Child poverty reduction: 4.8%
• Gains concentrated in bottom half of income distribution

Key policy insight

The $403M cost reflects that most current EITC recipients have near-zero SC tax liability, so the existing 125% nonrefundable match provides very little actual benefit. This bill effectively unlocks that dead credit value—25% of 125% = 31.25% of federal EITC (~$406M, matching our estimate).

Structure

Follow the structure of utah-sb60-income-tax-reduction.md:

• Introduction with bill context
• Key results summary
• Link to PolicyEngine reform
• Policy explanation section
• Household impacts section
• Statewide impacts section (with distributional analysis)
• Conclusion

Files to create/modify

• Create app/src/data/posts/articles/sc-h3492-eitc-refundability.md
• Add entry to app/src/data/posts/posts.json
• Add image (placeholder or relevant stock image)

Notes

• Include placeholder for PolicyEngine app reform link
• Emphasize the "unlocking dead credit value" insight
• Use sentence case for all headings per CLAUDE.md guidelines

Read utah-sb60-income-tax-reduction.md and the sentence-case guidance in CLAUDE.md before creating app/src/data/posts/articles/sc-h3492-eitc-refundability.md. Add the post entry to app/src/data/posts/posts.json and an image, covering the supplied bill details, results, reform-link placeholder, household and statewide impacts, and the dead-credit insight.