Jeff and Anna Cardoza with their children.

Anna Cardoza discovered CA$H Maine after she graduated from college. It helped her greatly to have her taxes prepared and get back the most she could from her tax refund.  As Anna said, “I’ve always felt that I was in good, capable hands at CA$H Maine and trust the volunteers’ expertise to find our family the best tax breaks that we are eligible for.”

When she and her husband went to get their taxes prepared this year at Midcoast CA$H they also learned about several programs and community resources to help their family move forward towards their financial goals.

As a recent college graduate moving into the field as a school counselor, her husband Jeff was eager to utilize the Educational Opportunity Tax Credit, a college affordability program for individuals who have earned a college degree in Maine and continue to live and work in the state. The program provides significant tax benefits to Maine residents like Jeff who are paying back eligible student loans.

“The free tax prep program has really helped us, and the volunteers are great! We heard about the Rainy Day Savings and Family Development Account (FDA) and wanted to apply right away in order to benefit from these matched-savings programs. We hope to use these programs to help build up our emergency fund and to help save for a house! We have been wanting our own house for a few years now, but we had to wait until Jeff was out of school. Now that he is out and has been working for a year, we decided it was time to start looking into things. When we heard about the FDA program during our tax preparation from CA$H Maine, we thought “this is just what we need” and it was perfect timing! We were happy to hear that there was a program out there that could help us make our “first house” dream come true. This is a great way to pursue your financial goals and get some help along the way. “

Jeff and Anna encourage others to follow in their footsteps and take advantage of matched-savings programs: “CA$H Maine has been so great in helping us figure everything out and working fast and efficiently to get us the help we need.”