Refund to Savings: Creating Contingency Savings at Tax Time

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Krista Comer, Blair Russell, Clinton Key, Dana Perantie and Dan Ariely

Chapter Chapter 6 in A Fragile Balance, 2015, pp 87-106 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The Refund to Savings (R2S) initiative aims to help low- and moderateincome (LMI) households build short-term contingency savings by providing motivation and opportunity to save their tax refunds, the largest single sum many households receive all year. Other research on tax-time interventions has yielded promising findings (Key et al. 2012; Tufano 2010; Beverly, Tescher, and Romich 2004), but R2S expands the potential of such interventions by using a scalable delivery system (online tax-preparation software) and incorporating motivational mechanisms grounded in behavioral economics theory. The delivery of the intervention is seamlessly integrated within an existing infrastructure, ensures high fidelity between the intervention’s design and its implementation, and minimizes the cost of the intervention. The intervention mechanisms are designed to help tax filers overcome psychological and behavioral barriers that limit the accumulation of savings.

Keywords: Saving Account; Saving Behavior; Internal Revenue Service; Alternative Financial Service; Payday Lending (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-48237-2_6

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137482372_6

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