About Providers

Providers (owned by leading fintech Propel) is a mobile platform that helps low-income Americans navigate their finances in a way that’s efficient and easy to understand. From one intuitive app, users can track government benefits like food stamps in real time and access valuable financial services—including a marketplace where they can find jobs, save money, land exclusive discounts, and effortlessly manage digital wallets, debit cards, and bank accounts.

Since launching in 2021, the Providers app has become an essential, respected resource for over five million regularly engaged users. As a result, it’s often the first place government organizations turn when they want to reach the low-income consumer market.

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The problem: Complex and costly tax filing

The U.S. tax system can be exceedingly difficult to navigate. Many low-income workers are unaware not only that they’re required to file taxes, but also that they’re likely owed money from their returns. For example, the IRS estimates that, each year, 20% of eligible taxpayers fail to seize their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), leaving around $7.3B in unclaimed refunds on the table.

A big part of the problem is that low-income workers lack reliable, affordable services they can use to get assistance with tax preparation and filing. As a trusted platform that’s well established in the community, Providers is uniquely positioned to help.

Providers wanted to offer an e-filing option to low-income consumers directly within their app. But, the more they learned about building and maintaining complex tax infrastructure, the less prepared they felt to handle it in-house. 

They needed a third-party partner that could deliver maximum refunds with minimal hassle for their users—plus a solution that would work with the other products and services they’d already built.

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The fix: A seamlessly integrated tax solution

With Column Tax’s embedded tax capabilities, Providers users can now prepare and file their returns without ever leaving the Providers app—the same, familiar platform they use to manage their finances and collect their government benefits.

This simplifies and streamlines the tax experience for them from end to end. With just a few clicks, Providers users can automatically flow their financial data into required tax forms and submit their completed returns in less than 15 minutes.

During the 2023 tax season, Column Tax helped Providers disburse over $50 million in refunds to low-income families—40% of which hadn’t filed at all the year before.

By integrating with Providers’ offerings, Column Tax makes the tax process easy and affordable. Users with a Providers Card mobile bank account can file their federal and state returns for free—meaning no third-party service cuts into a refund that can make up 50% of their annual income.

“Working with Column Tax gave us the means to offer e-filing in a way that’s really user-friendly, with strong customer support for users whose unique financial lives make filing taxes on their own extremely difficult.” — Molly McGowan, Director of Product Management, Propel

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The outcome

• $50M+ in refunds: Providers considers dollars in pockets their North Star metric—and, thanks to Column Tax, they’ve distributed over $50 million in refunds to low-income users.
• 2x faster filing: With Column Tax, Providers users cut their tax-filing timelines in half, with the entire process completed in under 15 minutes on average.‍
• 100% guarantee: Column Tax allows Providers to ensure both accuracy and a maximum refund for users filing tax returns—plus round-the-clock support and audit assistance for added confidence and peace of mind.