**The information below has not been verified for the 2020 tax year as IRS Pub. 596 has not yet been released by the IRS.**

The Federal Government offers relief to those in areas who were impacted by certain Presidentially-declared disasters.

Per IRS Publication 596, Earned Income Credit (EIC), on page 3:

Disaster tax relief. Disaster tax relief was enacted for those impacted by certain federally declared disasters. The tax benefits provided by this relief include an election to use your 2018 earned income to figure your 2019 earned income credit. See Election to use prior year earned income for more information.

For residents impacted by natural disasters, for example hurricanes and floods, the state of residence in TaxAct will result in additional questions for you to complete to use the prior year earned income when calculating Earned Income Credit.

To indicate you were affected by a Presidentially-declared disaster:

1. From within your TaxAct return (Online or Desktop), click Federal. On smaller devices, click in the upper left-hand corner, then click Federal.
2. Click Basic Information in the Federal Quick Q&A Topics menu to expand, then click Disaster tax relief.
3. Continue with the interview process to enter all of the appropriate information.

Note that any link in the information above is updated each year automatically and will take you to the most recent version of the document at the time it is accessed.