Extend MD EITC minimum-age disregard to married childless filers - #8936
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Maryland lets any filer who fails only the federal EITC minimum-age test claim the state credit on a pro forma federal credit computed as if the minimum-age requirement did not apply (2025 Resident Booklet, Instruction 18). PolicyEngine already models this via federal_eitc_without_age_minimum but wired it only into the unmarried-childless path; the married-or-has-child branch used the age-gated federal `eitc`, so a married childless couple under 25 got $0. Feed federal_eitc_without_age_minimum into both married-branch formulas for childless filers, keeping the actual federal EITC (with its takeup and filer conditions) for with-child filers. Fixes PolicyEngine#8934. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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MaxGhenis
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Reviewed: the childless gate on both married-branch formulas matches MD Instruction 18, and the integration household cross-validates against the Maine 18-24 expansion merged in #8932 — identical $10,476 MFJ household, identical $649 pro-forma federal credit, independently implemented (ME 50% childless match → $324.50; MD 45% refundable → $292.05 vs TaxAct $325 Line 22). Merging on green.
Fixes #8934.
Problem
Maryland lets any filer who fails only the federal EITC minimum-age test claim the state EITC on a pro forma federal credit computed as if the § 32 minimum-age requirement did not apply (2025 Resident Booklet, Instruction 18: "There is no minimum age requirement for taxpayers without a qualifying child").
PolicyEngine already models the pro forma credit —
federal_eitc_without_age_minimum— but wired it only into the unmarried-childless path. The married-or-has-child branch used the actual age-gated federal credit (eitc), so a married childless couple under 25 received $0.Fix
Feed
federal_eitc_without_age_minimuminto both married-branch formulas (md_married_or_has_child_non_refundable_eitc,md_married_or_has_child_refundable_eitc) for childless filers, gated oneitc_child_count == 0:The gate matters:
eitccarries takeup and filer conditions thatfederal_eitc_without_age_minimumomits, so an unconditional swap would have silently changed results for with-child filers. Childless-gating leaves with-child filers on the actual federal EITC (no age test applies to them) and matches the existing unmarried-childless treatment.Reproduction (from the issue)
MD, MFJ, ages 23/24, no dependents, $10,476 wages (2025):
eitcfederal_eitc_without_age_minimummd_refundable_eitcTests
md_married_or_has_child_{non_refundable,refundable}_eitc.yaml: childless cases now assert the age-disregarded base, plus new with-child regression guards confirming those filers still use the actual federaleitc.md_married_childless_age_disregard.yamlreproducing the issue household end-to-end.🤖 Generated with Claude Code