U.S. Savings Bonds
Promise and Potential of U.S. Savings Bonds
Learn more about D2D’s savings bond work in this June, 2007 presentation by Peter Tufano and Tim Flacke at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC.
Reinventing Savings Bonds
Savings bonds have always served multiple objectives: funding the U.S. government, democratizing national financing, and enabling families to save. Increasingly, the authors write, that last goal has been ignored. A series of efficiency measures introduced in 2003 make these bonds less attractive and less accessible to savers. Public policy should go in the opposite direction: U.S. savings bonds should be reinvigorated to help low- and moderate-income (LMI) families build assets. More and more, those families’ saving needs are ignored by private-sector asset managers and marketers.
Tax Time Savings: Testing US Savings Bonds at H&R Block Tax Sites
During the 2007 tax season, Professor Peter Tufano, founder of D2D Fund, collaborated with H&R Block to study offering U.S. Savings Bonds (Series I) at 27 H&R Block tax preparation offices. 3,729 clients with federal refunds greater than $500 received a scripted offer to purchase US Savings Bonds. 220 (or 5.9%) of these clients chose to purchase bonds spending an average of $228 each which resulted in tax time savings of $50,100.
Among the key preliminary learnings of this pilot study:
America's Best Kept Saving Secret: Testing U.S. Savings Bonds to Help Low-income Tax Filers Begin Saving
During the 2007 tax season, the D2D Fund, Inc. (“D2D”) and four Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (“VITA”) sites conducted a U.S. Savings Bond pilot test. From January 22nd to March 31st 2007, D2D and its partners offered Series I U.S. Savings Bonds to 4,841 low and moderate income (“LMI”) tax filers in four cities. This paper presents the results of this pilot, research and policy implications and specific recommendations for action. Key research findings include:
Further Research on U.S. Savings Bonds; Request for Proposal from VITA Sites
As you know, encouraging saving and asset building at tax time is challenging. In an ongoing effort to find new ways to meet this challenge, D2D Fund and partners tested U.S. Savings Bonds – combined with the new IRS split refund capability – as a saving strategy for VITA tax clients during tax season 2007. The results were encouraging. For this reason D2D is planning a second savings bond pilot in tax season 2008 and seeking tax sites that are interested in participating.