Refund to Savings 2015–2016: Field experiments to promote tax-time saving in low-and moderate-income households

Key Findings

• Across the 2015 and 2016 intervention years, R2S generated 29,536 additional savers and an additional $48 million deposited to savings vehicles.
• Simply changing the way refund deposit options were presented—also referred to as choice architecture—increased rates of tax refund savings deposits by 43%.
• The savings impacts of the R2S interventions persisted across 6 months among non students with persistent financial constraints.
• Messaging around saving for emergencies appeared to be the most effective messaging prompt and was particularly effective among non students who had persistent financial constraints and no emergency savings at tax time.
• The overall savings deposit rates of TTFE filers have increased in each year of the R2S Initiative. This possibly indicates that once tax filers are nudged to deposit into savings accounts, these behaviors persist through subsequent years of tax filing.

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Project: Refund to Savings (R2S)