Prepaid cards no longer offered

The handful of Louisiana taxpayers who’ve received their state tax refunds on a prepaid debit card in the past don’t have that option anymore.

According to a Louisiana Department of Revenue press release issued Sept. 29, the LDR can no longer deposit tax refunds onto the Louisiana MyRefund Prepaid Debit Card because JPMorgan Chase & Co. is ending its prepaid debit card services to corporations and governments.

Taxpayers will still be able to receive their refund through direct deposit or by a check in the mail, the release reads.

People who currently have MyRefund debit cards that have money on them will still be able to spend the money, but once they have no more money on them, those taxpayers will have to either sign up for direct deposit or receive a check for future tax refunds.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced in an early 2014 press release that the company would suspend the service to governments and corporations and would explore selling the division.

According to an email from Kizzy Payton, spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue, of the 1,496,928 tax refunds that were issued this year to date, only 81,491 of them were deposited on prepaid debit cards. That number represents only 5 percent of all tax returns issued by the state.

A vast majority of people, 72 percent to be exact, have received their refunds through direct deposit, Payton wrote in the email.

Refund checks from Louisiana are issued through Chase Bank and “taxpayers without bank accounts can cash their checks at one of Chase’s 154 banking centers located throughout the state,” Payton wrote.

If taxpayers are not customers of Chase Bank, Payton wrote, the non-customer check cashing fee is waived and recipients can cash those checks for free.

Jan Moller, director of the Louisiana Budget Project, a non-profit organization that reports on public policy and how it affects Louisiana’s low-to moderate-income families, said no matter what, the Department of Revenue needs to offer those who do not have bank accounts convenient methods to cash their income tax returns.