I don’t usually post financial news on this blog, but this post from Clark Howard struck me as something that some folks in the Southeast might need to know. Here’s what the post says:

“People who experienced an income drop as a result of living in a hurricane disaster area during 2017 will be encouraged to use a “special computation method” to figure out their tax returns this season.

The method involves letting taxpayers who took an income hit last year to figure the EITC using their 2016 earned income rather than their 2017 earned income.

That may allow them to qualify for the EITC when they might otherwise not.

The IRS is asking taxpayers to figure the credit both ways — that is, the regular way using 2017 earned income, and the special way using 2016 earned income — and claim whichever approach will net them the larger refund.:

You can read more about it here.