D2D Fund

R2A-1 – 2004 TAX SEASON- The first year

D2D and the Community Action Project of Tulsa County (CAPTC) provided tax filers a chance to split their refund when they filed their returns. Over 75 Tulsa taxpayers used this free service to direct a portion of their refund into a savings account. Seventy-five percent of these individuals had no prior savings.

Over 500 tax filers (average income $13,440) were offered this opportunity. Almost, about one-third wanted to participate although many could not because of lack of savings account. Leveraging Tax Refunds to Encourage Savings summarized the research.

R2A-2 – 2005 – adding a second site

In 2005, D2D offered R2A in Tulsa with CAPTC and Bank of Oklahoma and in New York City with FoodChange.

The 2004 filing season brought a number of innovations to R2A, including new point-of-sale presentations, Spanish language materials, and a major graphic redesign of brochures and posters. A team of Harvard Kennedy School public policy students issued a report titled An Evaluation of Tax Refund Splitting which summarized findings and survey results.

R2A-3 – 2006 - expanded to seven sites

In 2006, D2D joined with H&R Block and Nets to Ladders to offer refund splitting in VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) sites located in Brooklyn, Chicago, Denver, Des Moines, San Antonio, Seattle and Tulsa. Nearly 9,000 VITA site tax clients had their taxes completed at these sites. On average, the 136 takers saved 48% of their refund and the total amount saved was $132,000.

Research revealed several features about tax clients who saved a portion of their tax refund:

• 51% decided to save after coming to tax site;
• Of those 51%, when asked what most influenced their decision:
• 25% - responded “learning how much my refund was”
• 30% - said “having my tax preparer explain the service to me”

This suggests that 28% of all savers decided to save while actually having their taxes completed. This data underlines the critical role of onsite saving promotion and effective training of tax preparers to be ready to ask clients whether they want to save after their tax refund has been calculated.