Does the current TAXSIM executable stop refunding Hawaii's 2021–2022 refundable credits when they exceed the tax?

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
22/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
python
Domain
backend

Research direction

The payload names no source files, so begin by reproducing the four CSV rows through the TAXSIM emulator and confirm that Hawaii 2021 and 2022 siitax stays at the $300 Act 115 refund instead of going negative. Then check how the refundable food/excise and renters' credits are handled for those years, using the Form N-11 lines 28–32 rule and the 2021/2022 instructions. Done means rows 1–3 match the previous executable and PolicyEngine values, and the 2023 row is unchanged. Treat the EITC limit in row 1 as a separate question to raise, not part of the first fix.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

After the #1454 change, the current TAXSIM executable seems to treat the Hawaii refundable food/excise tax credit and the low-income renters' credit as nonrefundable in 2021 and 2022. v40 still shows the credits, but they no longer take siitax below zero (row 3 keeps only the $300 Act 115 refund). The previous TAXSIM executable paid them, as PolicyEngine does. 2023 is unchanged. In our probes, 2020 changes in the same way.

taxsimid,year,state,mstat,page,sage,pensions,gssi,intrec,rentpaid,idtl,opt1,opt1v
1,2022,12,2,78,74,26000,32000,60,0,2,30,1
2,2022,12,1,70,0,0,15000,0,12000,2,30,1
3,2021,12,1,70,0,0,15000,0,12000,2,30,1
4,2023,12,1,70,0,0,15000,0,12000,2,30,1

staxbc is 0 in every row.

id year v40 TAXSIM / PE TAXSIM fiitax / siitax TAXSIM siitax, previous executable PolicyEngine fiitax / siitax
1 2022 90 / 90 239.00 / 0.00 −90.00 239.00 / −90.00
2 2022 210 / 210 0.00 / 0.00 −210.00 0.00 / −210.00
3 2021 210 / 210 −1,400.00 / −300.00 −510.00 −1,400.00 / −510.00
4 2023 320 / 320 0.00 / −320.00 −320.00 0.00 / −320.00

Row 1 is the food/excise credit of 2 × $45. Rows 2 and 3 are the $110 food/excise credit and the $100 renters' credit (2 × $50 at age 65+).

2022 Form N-11 Instructions, PDF page 21, "Refundable Credits" (lines 28–32): "IMPORTANT! If the amount of payments plus these credits is at least $1 more than your tax, the difference will be refunded to you."

The 2021 instructions (PDF page 21) have the same words.

A related detail: in #1454 row 1, v39 is now 184.18 (394.18 − 210, the food/excise credit only). Line 34 also subtracts the $150 renters' credit, so the EITC limit is 34.18. If the refunds come back with the current EITC limit, that row would show siitax −150 instead of 0.

Census impact: 28 Hawaii records (14 households in 2021 and 2022) changed from agreement with PolicyEngine to gaps of $70 to $440, and 24 of them are above our filing threshold.

Dominant language
Python
Stars
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Forks
10
Avg merge
2d 9h
Merged PRs (30d)
15

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