Fix EITC/CDCC: allow SE losses to reduce earned income per IRS Worksheet B#7469
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Fix EITC/CDCC: allow SE losses to reduce earned income per IRS Worksheet B#7469PavelMakarchuk wants to merge 1 commit intomainfrom
PavelMakarchuk wants to merge 1 commit intomainfrom
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Per IRC 32(c)(2)(A)(ii) and IRS EIC Worksheet B (Form 1040 Instructions, Line 4b), self-employment losses reduce earned income with no per-person floor. The previous max_(0, ...) in adjusted_earnings.py incorrectly clipped each person's earned income to zero, preventing SE losses from offsetting a spouse's wages. The zero floor now applies only to the combined tax-unit total in filer_adjusted_earnings.py, matching Worksheet B: "If line 4b is zero or less, You can't take the credit." This also fixes CDCC (Form 2441 instructions: "You must reduce your earned income by any loss from self-employment"). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Codecov Report✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests. Additional details and impacted files@@ Coverage Diff @@
## main #7469 +/- ##
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+ Coverage 70.60% 100.00% +29.39%
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Files 3896 2 -3894
Lines 56278 22 -56256
Branches 277 0 -277
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- Hits 39735 22 -39713
+ Misses 16542 0 -16542
+ Partials 1 0 -1
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Summary
max_(0, ...)floor fromadjusted_earnings.pythat incorrectly clipped self-employment losses, preventing them from reducing earned incomefiler_adjusted_earnings.py, matching IRS EIC Worksheet B Line 4b: "If line 4b is zero or less, You can't take the credit"Legal Authority
IRC 32(c)(2)(A)(ii): EITC earned income includes "the amount of the taxpayer's net earnings from self-employment for the taxable year (within the meaning of section 1402(a))". Per IRC 1402(a), net earnings can be negative ("income or loss").
IRS EIC Worksheet B (Form 1040 Instructions, Line 4b): "Combine lines 1e, 2c, 3, and 4a. This is your total earned income." — No per-component or per-person floor. "If line 4b is zero or less, You can't take the credit." — Floor applies only to the combined total.
IRS Form 2441 Instructions (CDCC, Lines 4-5): "You must reduce your earned income by any loss from self-employment."
Note: Pub 596's "don't subtract losses on Schedule C or F from wages" applies only to Form 4029 filers (religious exemption from SE tax), not to general EITC filers.
Example
MFJ couple: Head has $30,000 wages, Spouse has -$10,000 SE loss.
Test plan
adjusted_earnings.yaml(3 tests) — SE loss, positive SE, zero SEfiler_adjusted_earnings.yaml(2 tests) — partial offset, full offset with floor🤖 Generated with Claude Code