当美国家庭提交纳税申报表时, the 澳博官方网站app 研究所 released the first-ever daily-level event study documenting how tax refunds and tax payments affect families’ income, 储蓄, 和支出. 这项研究, 纳税时间:家庭如何管理退税和支付, draws on data from 2015–2017 to show tax refunds are a major financial event that resets the spending patterns of families which receive them.

Among families receiving refunds—who in the years studied, represented roughly 80 percent of tax filers—29 percent have their most cash flow-positive day of the year when they receive the refund, 哪一个相当于六个星期的实得收入. 收到退款后六个月, the average family’s spending levels have settled to new steady-state, almost seven percent higher than the pre–refund steady state.

"The receipt of a tax refund is a watershed financial moment for many American families," said Diana Farrell, President and CEO, 澳博官方网站app 研究所. “因为这笔一次性付款意义重大, resetting a family’s spending and consumption patterns for at least six months, it is increasingly important for policy makers and financial services providers to understand how American families use their refunds and how to help them make the most of this process."

这份新报告的其他要点包括:

Families put off spending and accrue credit card debt while they wait for their tax refund to arrive. 平均, families use a fifth of their refund to pay down bills – mostly bills from past consumption, 包括信用卡和医疗账单. 此外, many families may be losing money by effectively extending an interest-free loan to the government in the form of tax withholdings, and then using their refund to pay down interest-bearing credit card debt they accrue over the course of the year.

• In the week after the tax refund arrives, families’ expenditures jump 74 percent above baseline.
• 关于 one-fifth of the spending response is put toward paying down bills, 包括信用卡和医疗账单. 循环信用卡债务下降.7 percent ($177) between the month before the refund and the month after.
• 支出 on durable goods doubles in the week after the refund, from $25 during a typical week to $50 upon receipt of the refund.
• Families with lower cash balances are especially likely to time durable goods spending around their tax refund, and to carry higher revolving credit card debt until they receive it.

对很多家庭来说, 退税持续时间远远超过纳税季节, fueling spending and 储蓄 for more than half the year, raising questions about whether families have the cash flow management tools and information they need to integrate their tax refunds into financial planning.

• 收到退税后一个月, the average family still has two–thirds of its refund either in a checking account or transferred to other accounts.
• 退款后六个月, the average family has 28 percent of the refund either transferred to 储蓄s accounts or remaining in its checking account. The average checking account balance remains elevated by $404.
• 几乎有一半的家庭获得了退税, the refund exceeds the sum of pre–refund balances in all of their cash accounts.

从2015年到2017年, 在新税法生效之前, the majority of families that made tax payments had sufficient funds in their checking accounts to cover these payments. These families did not cut expenditures or increase their labor income to cover the payment. 而不是, they transferred cash into their checking accounts during the three weeks leading up to the payment.

• 一旦交了税, families’ expenditures and account balances settled quickly back to the original steady–state. This is true even for families who didn’t appear to have enough cash to cover their payments just a few weeks before making them.

The report leverages high-frequency, de-identified financial data from a base sample of 8.3 million families who used a 追逐 checking account to receive a tax refund direct deposit or make an electronic tax payment in 2015, 2016, or 2017. The 研究所’s research focuses on two subsets of these families—6.5 million who received refunds and made no payments in a given year, and 1.3 million who made all of the year’s tax payments on a single day and did not receive a refund.

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