With many students and part-timers working at his company’s restaurants, Brian Zach expected a lot of employees borrowing at high interest rates to get at their tax refunds this spring.
“We didn’t want people going out getting loans against their tax refunds,” said Zach, human resources administrator for Food Fight Inc., a Madison company with nine Madison-area restaurants. To help the workers get their full refunds – and more – Zach contacted the Center on Business and Poverty.
The center, part of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, brought trained volunteers to Food Fight and helped workers prepare and file their taxes. Those who qualified also got earned income tax credits, which can be as high as $4,400 for low-income workers with two children.