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Resources for tax preparers

For many people, their tax refund is the single biggest check they receive all year. This can make tax time a unique opportunity to save. Our free tools can help you encourage the clients you work with to save as much of their refund as possible.

Strengthen your services

Help staff and volunteers work effectively with taxpayers at your site. As you prepare to open your doors to clients, use these tools to create a practical plan for encouraging tax-time saving, tailored to your site’s needs, capabilities, and clients.

This document provides promising practices and recommendations for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs to improve consumers’ financial well-being at tax time.

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This guide provides information on how to more effectively measure saving behavior at tax time. Included are recommendations on the additional information to collect, three different approaches to collecting the information, and suggestions for integrating the information collection into the tax preparation process.

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This is a simple customer journey map for VITA programs to better understand what your customers see, feel, and experience at different stages of the tax preparation process.

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Brainstorm creative ideas for how your organization can actively encourage clients to save their refunds. Use it as a team exercise in your planning meetings or as a pre-meeting worksheet for staff.

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This matrix helps you review and compare your current activities to encourage saving and identify those with the most promise. Use it as a group exercise to prioritize ideas for further planning.

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Identify outcomes and key implementation steps for one or more program activities. Use it during planning meetings for implementing new programming.

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Once you’ve outlined key programming outcomes and milestones, individual staff or teams can use this tool to develop detailed plans for implementing your ideas to encourage saving.

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Craft your key messages to effectively encourage clients to save at tax time.

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Encourage saving by employing the principle of “anchoring” to set expectations and help clients focus on a specific savings goal.

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Check out the creative ways some VITA providers have utilized their volunteers, leveraged social media, and offered additional services to their customers.
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Help taxpayers prepare to file and save

Use these worksheets and handouts with clients before, during, and after their appointment to make sure they’re prepared to file their return and have identified their best options for saving their refund. Many are available in both English and Spanish.

Help people keep more of their refund by using free tax preparation services.

English | Spanish

Help people file for free and get their refunds quickly with direct deposit.

English | Spanish

Be sure people understand for-fee products like refund advance loans and refund anticipation checks.

English | Spanish

Walk clients through filing their taxes for free or low cost and claiming the credits they are eligible for.

Online guide

Handout describing alternatives for saving from a tax refund.

English | Spanish

Free and easy ways to split a tax refund between accounts so people can spend some and save some of their money.

English | Spanish

Checklist outlining what to bring along to a tax appointment.

English | Spanish

Checklist to verify all the documents required for a tax appointment.

English | Spanish

Fill-in-the-blanks worksheet for deciding how much to save.

English | Spanish