American Express cardholders may not be able to use their card at every single small business in the country, but the still widely accepted credit giant announced on Monday that customers could now use their rewards points to their tax bills. Several card companies offer programs that offer airline miles, gasoline credits, other rewards, but American Express’ new program to use reward points to pay taxes is an industry first. CNN Money.com posted an article this morning on AmEx’s announcement; you can find a clip from their story below.
AmEx (AXP, Fortune 500) cardholders can use the points toward federal, state and local income tax payments when they use one of two Web sites to file their taxes: Pay1040.com and OfficialPayments.com.
But to pay off $5,000 in taxes a cardmember would have to charge $1 million.
That's because it takes a whopping 200 points to pay off just $1 in taxes. And, according to an AmEx spokeswoman, cardmembers typically earn about one point for every dollar charged to their credit card.
"In light of the economy, we wanted to give cardmembers a practical use for their rewards points," said spokeswoman Mona Hamouly.