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2022 Annual Conference

May 19–21, 2022

Sheraton Sand Key, Clearwater Beach, FL, US

Proposal authors can use this tool to see where they have been placed in the program agenda for an Oral or Poster Session.

Scroll down to search by the Submitter or Author Name, by Date/Time, or by Keywords.

Confirm your place in the schedule by going to the ACCI Presenter Confirm Google Sheet and marking your session with the name and email address of the author who will be attending and presenting. Each presentation must have a separate paid registraint. Contact the ACCI Office immedicately by email at admin@consumerinterests.org to report a conflict or if you have questions. Please be sure to reference the session title(s), date(s), and time(s) if you contact us.

205 Tax-time Debt Repayment Education: A Pilot Field Experiment with IRS-VITA Clients

Friday, May 20, 2022 at 5:15 PM–6:15 PM EDT
Room 4 Posters
Key Words

field experiment, tax-time intervention, debt repayment education, tax refund, IRS-VITA 

Short Description

This pilot study is part of an ongoing study exploring whether delivering debt-repayment education at tax-time can improve debt-management behaviors among low- to moderate-income (LMI) households who are IRS-VITA clients in central Arkansas. Limited work has been conducted focusing on tax-time debt-repayment interventions. For many LMI households, deciding how to best allocate their tax refund is an important annual financial decision. This study explores whether tax-time financial education, focused specifically on debt-repayment and the use of a repayment strategy, can serve as an effective tool to help improve financial behaviors. An ongoing framed field experiment is being conducted with LMI clients utilizing IRS-VITA services. Clients anticipating receiving a refund are randomized at the household level when they start the filing process, to either receive a debt repayment educational intervention (treatment), or not (control). This debt-repayment educational intervention utilizes materials adapted from the CFPB’s Your Money, Your Goals Toolkit. Three months after filing their return, 54% of clients who received the intervention used all or part of their refund towards paying down debt, compared to 30.8% of clients in the control group. Although preliminary results, this initial 23.2% difference between groups warrants further data collection during the upcoming 2022 tax season.

Submitter

Kathryn Carroll, University of Central Arkansas

Authors

Kathryn Carroll, University of Central Arkansas
Christy Horpedahl, University of Central Arkansas
Joyia Yorgey, Arkansas Asset Builders
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