Most financial advice assumes you’re paying attention. It assumes you read the notices, track the deadlines, and know which forms to file. Franklin Chen-Ramirez, 59, is proof that even the most hardworking Americans can go years without realizing what they’re entitled to — not out of laziness, but out of sheer exhaustion.
I connected with Franklin in January 2026 through a referral from the Cherry Hill Community Center in Baltimore, Maryland. A caseworker there had flagged his situation to our publication as part of an ongoing series on small business owners navigating economic relief programs. When I arrived, Franklin was sitting at a folding table in a side room, wearing a faded gray hoodie, hands still calloused from the shop. He shook my hand and apologized for being a few minutes late. He’d had a transmission job run long.
He owns a small auto repair business in South Baltimore — nine bays, two employees, open since 1998. By any measure, he has built something real. But the last several years, he told me, have felt less like building and more like standing still while the ground shifts beneath him.
A Degree That Was Supposed to Help
Franklin went back to school in 2017, enrolling in a part-time MBA program at a small private university outside Baltimore. He was 50. His wife, Maria, was staying home with their youngest, and their two older kids were in middle school. He thought a business degree would help him formalize operations, maybe expand to a second location.
The program cost more than he expected. By the time he graduated in 2019, he had taken on $47,200 in federal student loans. The second location never materialized. Then the pandemic hit, and the shop limped through 2020 on a PPP loan and neighborhood loyalty.
By 2025, Franklin’s net shop income was roughly $52,000 annually. His household was carrying $1,480 per month in combined student loan and childcare payments — nearly 34 percent of his take-home. His wife had been unable to return to work because their youngest, now four years old, needed full-time care that cost more than an entry-level salary could offset.
“I stopped looking at the big picture a long time ago,” Franklin told me. “I just look at what’s in front of me. What’s due this week. What breaks down. You stop thinking about whether there’s a better way.”
The Referral That Changed His Filing Season
The Cherry Hill Community Center had partnered with a local nonprofit tax assistance program — a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) site — to help working families navigate their returns. A caseworker named Diane had been gently nudging Franklin to come in for two years. He finally showed up in October 2025, just to ask a quick question about quarterly estimated taxes.
He ended up staying three hours.
The VITA volunteer who reviewed his prior-year returns found something that stopped her cold: Franklin had not claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit in 2022, 2023, or 2024. He had assumed, reasonably but incorrectly, that the credit didn’t apply to self-employed business owners above a certain income. According to the IRS, the EITC is available to self-employed filers, including sole proprietors, provided their net earnings and adjusted gross income fall within the eligibility thresholds.
For tax year 2024, a married couple filing jointly with three qualifying children could receive a maximum EITC of $7,830, according to IRS EITC tables. Franklin’s situation put him well within range for a meaningful credit.
What He Had Been Missing — and What He Could Still Recover
The VITA volunteer walked Franklin through two separate credits that applied to his household. The first was the EITC. The second was the Child and Dependent Care Credit, which allows eligible taxpayers to claim a percentage of qualifying childcare expenses paid during the year. For one qualifying child, the IRS allows up to $3,000 in eligible expenses, according to IRS Publication 503.
Franklin had been paying $1,100 per month — $13,200 annually — for licensed childcare for his youngest. He had the receipts. He had the provider’s tax ID. He had everything needed to claim the credit. He had simply never known to claim it.
For tax year 2025, Franklin’s VITA volunteer estimated his combined federal credit value — EITC plus the Child and Dependent Care Credit — at approximately $5,240. His amended return for 2023 was filed in November 2025 and resulted in an additional refund of $3,618. He was still waiting on the 2022 amendment when I spoke with him in January.
The Student Loan Question That Still Lingers
The credits helped, but they didn’t erase the larger weight Franklin carries. His $47,200 in federal student loans remains on a standard 10-year repayment plan, with $380 due each month. He looked into income-driven repayment options but found the process confusing, and after the extended pause on federal student loan payments ended in late 2023, he simply resumed the automatic payments he’d had before — without revisiting whether a different plan might reduce his monthly burden.
When I asked him whether he’d explored the SAVE plan or other income-driven options since repayment resumed, he paused for a moment. “Diane mentioned something about that,” he said. “I haven’t gotten there yet. There’s always something else first.”
That sentence — there’s always something else first — is maybe the most honest summary of Franklin’s financial life. He’s not in denial. He’s not irresponsible. He’s overwhelmed in the specific, grinding way that comes from running a business, raising three children, managing debt, and doing it all largely without professional guidance.
What Franklin’s Story Reveals About the System
Franklin Chen-Ramirez is not an edge case. The IRS estimates that roughly 1 in 5 eligible taxpayers fails to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit each year. Self-employed filers — particularly those running small businesses with variable income — are among the most likely to assume the credit doesn’t apply to them, or to file without professional help and simply leave lines blank.
The gap isn’t always ignorance in the pejorative sense. Franklin earned an MBA. He’s been filing taxes for three decades. The issue is that the tax code is genuinely complex, and programs designed to help working families are often buried under language that doesn’t clearly signal who qualifies. A mechanic running a Schedule C business doesn’t naturally see himself in the phrase “earned income tax credit.”
When I asked Franklin what he planned to do with the amended refund money when it comes through, he didn’t answer immediately. He looked at the table. “The student loans,” he finally said. “Whatever’s left after the student loans, maybe something for the kids.” There was no excitement in how he said it. Just relief at the idea of chipping something down.
He walked me out to the parking lot when we finished. His truck — a 2011 F-150 with a dent above the rear wheel well — was the only vehicle left in the lot. He mentioned, almost as an aside, that he still hadn’t gotten around to fixing that dent. He’d been meaning to for two years.
Some things, he said, just keep getting pushed to later. The trick, apparently, is making sure the things that can actually help you don’t end up on that same list.
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