'Earned Income Tax Credit' Applications Open Until the 17th... Second-Half Payment Scheduled for End of June

The National Tax Service announced on March 3 that it will accept applications for the second half of 2024 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) until March 17.

The semi-annual application system for the EITC is designed to expedite support for low-income households by shortening the payment period. The National Tax Service paid out 578.9 billion won (to 1.2 million households) for the first half of 2024 EITC, which was applied for in September 2024, in December-about eight months earlier than usual. Applicants who applied for the first half of the year are considered to have also applied for the second half, so they do not need to apply separately.

This second-half EITC is available to 1.1 million households whose only income in 2024 is from employment. The EITC will be paid at the end of June after eligibility screening.

However, if you have both employment income and business or religious income in 2024, you must apply during the regular application period (May 1 to June 2).

Application notifications will be sent via mobile or mail, and applications can be submitted through Hometax or the automated response phone system. If you are unsure whether you are eligible for notification, you can easily check by searching for "근로장려금" (Earned Income Tax Credit) on a portal such as Naver, which will provide direct access to Hometax for quick verification.

Starting this year, the maximum total income limit for dual-income households has been raised from 38 million won to 44 million won. In addition, to ensure that dual-income households are not disadvantaged due to marriage, the threshold has been increased to twice that of single-person households. The scope of automatic application eligibility has also been expanded from those aged 60 and above to all age groups, increasing the number of new eligible applicants to 960,000-an increase of 690,000 compared to the previous year.

If you give prior consent for automatic application when applying for the EITC, your application will be automatically submitted for the next two years if you continue to meet the eligibility requirements.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.