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OpportunityTexas Savings Bond
By Lauren Williams on 01/25/2012 @ 11:15 AM
City of Austin Triples its Investment in the OpportunityTexas Savings Bond Project at Foundation Communities’ Tax Centers
Foundation Communities has been a creative, high-performing Self-Employment Tax Initiative local partner since 2008, when they first participated in the SETI Demonstration. In 2011 alone, Foundation Communities’ Community Tax Centers helped over 18,000 filers recover $29.8 million in refunds into the local economy; nearly 1,800 of those filers were self-employed taxpayers. Today, Foundation Communities remains closely engaged with SETI as one of sixteen pilot sites participating in the Schedule C VITA Pilot and as contributors of countless materials to the SETI Resource Bank.
As longtime partners, we’re excited to share news of their continued success: in January, the City of Austin announced that it would triple the $10,000 OpportunityTexas investment in Foundation Communities’ work to promote savings through their Savings Bond Incentive Project by providing an additional $20,000 investment to increase the number of families that save at tax time. OpportunityTexas is a joint project of the Center for Public Policy Priorities and RAISE Texas working to expand economic opportunity through education and asset building. This Savings Bond Incentive initiative employs a variety of incentives to increase the number of tax center clients allocating a portion of their refund to the purchase of a savings bond. Incentives ranged from $10 and $20 supermarket gift cards to tote bags to $50 savings bonds and varied from day to day so that Foundation Communities and OpportunityTexas could monitor differences in take-up and identify which incentives were most effective.
Before the 2011 tax season, Austin City Councilmember Bill Spelman said that “the City of Austin wants to see more saving in our community and to learn more about what motivates people to save a portion of their tax refund.” So, in 2011, the City funded a $10,000 matching challenge grant as a first step toward that goal. In its first year, 243 clients purchased a total of $40,950 in savings bonds, ranging in value from $50 to $500, and 167 of those claimed one the of the incentives offered by the Savings Bond Incentive Pilot Project. For the 2012 tax season, they have expanded their outreach to motivate more savers in additional communities. For more information about last years’ Savings Bond Incentive Pilot Project and to see what they identified as best practices, check out the Foundation Communities final report here. Or, take a look at this broader report on savings promotion at both United Ways’ and Foundation Communities’ tax sites last year—Texas Saves at Tax Time 2011: Best Practices to Operating a Tax-Time Savings Project.
Interested in promoting savings at your own tax site this year? Take a look at the SETI Resource Bank to see how other SETI partners have worked to promote savings at tax time. Better yet, check out this awesome Financial Education Guide for VITA Programs created by CFED’s Savings and Financial Security Team to help taxpayers make tough decisions about spending and saving for the future.
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