Tax Time Savings

Tax time is a great opportunity to start a savings account or build up your savings!  A tax refund is often the largest amount of money that families receive in a single check.  

Now it is easier than ever to save at tax time since you can split your refunds into 1, 2 or 3 accounts through Direct Deposit. Even if you don't have a bank account, you can purchase U.S. Savings Bonds as a way to save.

Tax-Time Pilot Project

From 2011 to 2015, RAISE Texas and Every Texan (previously CPPP) partnered to develop and fund the Tax-Time Savings Project, which tested different incentives to encourage Texas VITA filers to save a portion of their tax refund in either a savings bond or a matched savings account. Many local VITA sites continue to integrate tax-time savings into their VITA work. Click here for the report. 

Through this project, we identified the challenges and best practices in getting VITA sites to promote savings at tax time. These learnings are still applicable today.

Resources

Texas Saves at Tax Time 2011: Best Practives to Operating a Tax-time Savings Project

IRS: Now you can buy U.S. Series l Savings Bonds for anyone with your tax refund

Tax Time Savings Bonds: Saving Is Hard, Bonds Make It Easy