PayPal and april Team on Faster Tax Filing

The collaboration, announced Tuesday (Jan. 20), lets PayPal Debit Mastercard customers in the U.S. file their 2025 state and federal tax returns for free using april’s tax filing service.

“By connecting tax filing to where customers already manage payments, we can deliver better outcomes for both PayPal and its customers,” Ben Borodach, april’s co-founder and CEO, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

“Together with PayPal, we’re helping millions of customers simplify an essential and often complicated part of managing their finances.”

According to the release, the april platform prefills information based on the data available in documents uploaded by the customer, while also offering live support or an AI chatbot to answer tax filing questions.

The companies say this experience allows customers to file their taxes in — on average — under 20 minutes, receive their federal tax refund up to five days early, and save approximately $160 in typical costs.

Meanwhile, PayPal says it offers customers flexible options for paying their taxes, such as PayPal Credit, which offers special financing on transactions of more than $149 for six months, along with the PayPal Cashback Mastercard and PayPal Debit Card.

“At PayPal, we’re committed to giving our customers smarter, more rewarding ways to manage their money all in one centralized place, whether they are earning, spending, sending or saving,” said Shanthi Sarkar, PayPal’s vice president of debit and money management.

“Our partnership with april empowers customers to manage even more of their finances in one trusted place, helping them streamline tax preparation and take meaningful steps toward setting up their finances for the year ahead.”

The partnership comes as American consumers are finding it harder to save, as PYMNTS Intelligence research has found.

While 52% of consumers surveyed in August said they believed they would increase their savings throughout the following year, just 24% actually did so in the prior six months. More than half of those surveyed said steeper living expenses had hindered their ability to save during that six-month timeframe.

“Unexpected expenses and debt payments compounded the problem, particularly for households with little margin for error,” PYMNTS wrote last week.

“The data also showed that saving behavior was becoming self-reinforcing. Consumers who already saved large portions of their income were increasingly able to accelerate those efforts, while those saving little were more likely to cut back further.”