Our mission at Column Tax

Every year, American taxpayers spend over $35 billion and 5 billion hours to get their taxes done. At Column Tax, we see an opportunity to redefine the relationship Americans have with their taxes. We’re building a world in which managing taxes is easy, affordable, and accessible.

73% of Americans report that rely financially on their tax refund. Tax filing is not only an annual necessity, but also a key aspect in Americans’ financial lives. That’s why we’ve designed an experience that empowers each American to feel confident in doing their taxes. At Column Tax, we meet users where they are already comfortable: in the apps and products they regularly use.

Column Tax has built APIs that enable mobile banks and fintechs to embed tax filing directly in their products, making the process fundamentally better by reducing ambiguity, increasing the accuracy of filings, and saving time and money.

At Column Tax, we make it possible to connect the financial and tax products people already use to a provide better experience. This connected approach allows us and our partners to deliver high-quality, low-cost, efficient, and reliable tax products to all Americans. Today, over 30 partners work with Column Tax to offer better tax products to their users.

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What we’ve built

Column Tax is an e-file provider that helps people file end-to-end in our partners’ apps. After our partners integrate our custom API, their users can click in to file. The experience guides the user all the way to submission to the IRS, which we can do as one of the first APIs authorized as an official e-file provider.

By connecting with financial apps that already have key information like income, investment gains, and business expenses, Column Tax can pre-populate relevant fields and reduce the number of questions needed to file tax returns and the number of data entry mistakes made.

With a stronger picture of a user’s financial situation, Column Tax can also ensure that each user receives a maximum refund. And by embedding where peoples’ financial lives already are, Column Tax also helps people beyond just filing season.

This culminates in a less stressful and faster experience. Filing through Column Tax is already 1.5-2x faster than standalone DIY tax software options. It’s even faster for certain filers like gig workers, who often spend 20+ hours managing their taxes each year.

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Who Column Tax works with

At Column Tax, we work with banks, fintech, tax, and financial companies to help them embed tax experiences inside of their products. Historically, tax products have been independent and siloed, an intimidating black box that Americans have to approach with trepidation each year. Column Tax, with its API-first products, helps companies bring tax filing inside of their apps to serve their users in a fundamentally better way.

We’ve built Column Tax to serve every American and, in turn, we work with a variety of segments to bring embedded tax filing to the masses.

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1. Traditional, chartered, and mobile banks

We work with banks, financial institutions, and banking companies to help build out and unify their growing portfolio of consumer services. Tax filing requires information from across a user’s financial ecosystem, tying together other financial products like accounts, expense tracking, investments, and loans.

In addition to offering a varied portfolio of products and retaining their users, our banking partners are focused on deposits.

The tax refund is typically the largest check an American receives each year. Every taxpayer has a choice of who they will trust to deposit their refund check with. We help our partners build a deep relationship around refunds to increase deposits to our partners’ accounts.

Users already have a trusted connection with their bank, establishing a solid foundation upon which to offer tax filing. Where tax filing may have seemed stressful or confusing before, users can now look to the banking product they know, love, and trust in order to do their taxes. Helpful information already stored in their bank can be pre-filled to make their filing experience easier and faster. Come refund time, users can rest assured knowing that their refund dollars will flow into their accounts securely and timely.

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Spotlight: Varo

Varo is the first chartered US bank to offer free tax filing. This year they embedded Column Tax, unlocking free tax filing for all Varo Bank account holders. Founder and CEO Colin Walsh says: “by providing access to free tax preparation and tax filing through Column Tax, Varo has created yet another trusted, secure tool our customers can use to improve the quality of their financial lives by saving them time and money."

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2. Self employment & independent contractors

Over 30 million Americans work freelancing, contractor, or gig working jobs. With the future of work changing and the gig economy growing, many of our partners focus on helping users track their expenses and miles year round — both of which are key elements on a sole proprietor or small business’s tax return.

Our partners noticed a key problem come tax filing time: their users were leaving the product to fill a need on year-end tax filing. Users spent the entire year tracking and managing their finances in these apps, only to have to leave them at a crucial moment. Embedding Column Tax was the solution. Now, these’ users can file directly in the app, where they’ve spent the year managing their businesses. All-in-one. Fully connected.

Self employed Americans face a particularly difficult task of organizing all of their expenses and miles come tax time. With our partners, we remove that burden. All of the expense and mileage information that our partners track throughout the year can be directly mapped to the user’s tax return, thereby removing the end-of-year task of receipt collecting, expense categorization, and mileage management.

Via Column Tax’s API, self employment-focused partners pass us expenses and miles that we pre-fill onto the user’s return, reducing over 20 hours of tax prep time per person.

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Spotlight: Solo

Solo is in their second year offering tax filing with Column Tax. Through their popular products for gig workers, Solo helps drivers track mileage and manage their finances. Come year-end, Solo users across their varying subscription tiers can access and easily file their taxes in-app, with Column Tax.

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3. Tax preparation companies

We work with a variety of tax-focused partners, who play differing roles in helping users manage and file their taxes.

For many users, they work with tax preparation services that can meet their specific needs, from bespoke tax advice to year-round financial management. In the past, these tax preparation services have been limited by their capacity. By embedding with Column Tax as a DIY offering, these partners are now able to offer their services at scale.

We’re helping these prep companies scale by unlocking DIY digital tax filing for their users, whose information is pre-filled by our tax prep partners to give them a head start.

For other partners, they’ve built technology that helps users’ to optimize their tax situations. Column Tax is embedded to unify these optimizations with the actual tax filing submission. After tax filing, our Column Tax further helps these companies deliver for their users. Our APIs provide information that can be used by tax prep companies to help advise their users during tax season and beyond.

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Spotlight: Manjas Tax

Manjas Tax is partnering with Column Tax to power the next generation CPA firm. By embedding DIY tax filing and automating areas of the filing flow, Manjas Tax is able to reach their clients at scale. As Mandeep Chhadra, CEO of Manjas, says, ““Thanks to the financial data Column Tax provides upfront, we can dig right into the meat of each conversation, helping clients get the most out of their tax returns instead of just plugging numbers into the system.”

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4. Personal financial management & fintech companies

Users have turned to personal financial management companies and fintech companies to help manage their financial lives on a regular basis. We partner with a variety of these companies, who help their users live financially healthy lives year-round. In the past, these partners have operated outside of the tax space. However, much of the information they track can be directly applied to a user’s tax filing form. In a matter of days, these partners can grow their product suite, add a revenue source, and put their data to work.

With Column Tax, PFM and fintech companies can connect their day-to-day offerings to year-end tax filing, demonstrating the value of their data by offering a high quality differentiator.

By filing taxes where they manage their money regularly, users unlock a simpler and more comprehensive tax filing experience. Bringing their tax & financial management into one place increases user confidence and accuracy.

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Spotlight: Nerdwallet

Nerdwallet launched “Nerdwallet Taxes powered by Column Tax” this year as a a driver for NerdWallet accounts. Registered users can now access easy tax filing, which has driven both acquisition of new account users and bolstered the Nerdwallet account offering to retain active users.

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5. Employer benefits & payroll companies

Financial wellness benefits are one of the key benefit offerings that employers provide their employees. They run the gamut from retirement plans to investment tools and tax advice. Now, our partners are able to go one step further, by offering tax filing directly. Employment is core to the tax filing experience and now, with embedded tax filing, employers are able to connect their valuable income information to year-end filing, adding a significant financial wellness benefit to their offerings.

Up until now, these companies have served as a “stop” on the road to a successful tax filing submission. Now, they can be the main vehicle.

Employers and subsequent payroll partners also hold key tax information like W-2 forms that are fundamental to the tax filing experience. We connect employer and payroll information like income and withholdings, so that the user doesn’t have to fill these out on their tax forms. This increases accuracy by removing manual entry errors and increases speed of time to file. We connect official forms and map income information onto a user’s tax return, seamlessly guiding them all the way through to IRS submission.

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Spotlight: Origin

Origin offers embedded tax filing both on their bespoke platform and with their employer customers, opening access to affordable tax filing to users at scale. Origin’s employer partners trust Origin for their high quality financial wellness benefits, which is now one of the first to include tax filing. As Matt Walsh, CEO of Origin, says, “[tax filing] is a huge event that happens once a year for people, and it’s also often the most significant financial windfall that comes into a consumer’s finances on an annual basis. Not surprisingly, this is something that employees come to their employers about quite regularly.”

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What’s next

Last tax season, Column Tax processed over $100 million in tax refunds and credits. We heard from end-users who described using Column Tax as “the best tax filing experience I’ve had in 25 years.”  

This tax season, we’ve been encouraged to see a tidal wave of new users filing their taxes in an easier and more affordable way with Column Tax. We’re lucky that we get to hear and learn from users every day. What we’ve seen is that a one-size solution cannot fit all. That’s why we’re proud to have created a flexible API that partners across various industries can use to provide custom tax products to their users.

There’s still more to do: over $5 billion in refunds are left unclaimed by Americans. The future that we’re building towards will fundamentally change the relationship Americans have with taxes and close that important gap. By connecting taxes to the products users interact with daily, we’re lowering the intimidating barrier and opening access to crucial refund dollars.

We imagine a world where “doing your taxes” is no longer a thing. Simply click in to Column Tax, review your return, and submit. As we grow, we remain dedicated to providing easy, affordable, and accessible tax products to every American, with our partners.