We want to send a “Shout out” to a Tax-Aide site in Torrance, California that has decided to be open one day a month, post filing season, to help taxpayers with any questions, preparing their late TY2017 returns, amended returns, problem returns and prior year returns.
Thank you Terry B. for sharing this with us and the VITA/TCE community. It takes a lot of commitment to extend their volunteer services. We will be here to support you.
This is a “shout out” to the Grace Works Ministries VITA in Franklin, TN. They have decided to open one day a month, post filing season to help low income taxpayers with any amended returns, problem returns, and extensions. This site is showing an 11.5% increase in production from last year. Each of their volunteers certified to the Advance level in order to help as many taxpayers as they could.
Thank you Patricia L. for sharing this great news.
This is an awesome story submitted by Jim at Scottsdale Community College
Caitlin enrolled in our Scottsdale Community College (SCC) income tax class where we use VITA materials for part of the course instruction. These students are invited to volunteer in the SCC VITA program, and Caitlin decided to volunteer. She attended the 4-day training prior to tax season as a refresher, and brought her sister, Faith, along. On the second day of training, their other sister Emily tagged along (just waiting for a ride to another event), and she became interested. All became certified and volunteered. Later, during the tax season, Faith’s dad (Dennis, a CPA) stopped by the site to see what we were doing, and he got certified. Faith and Dennis decided to take the tax class the following semester to expand their tax knowledge to partnerships and corporations, and one day during a special study session, Dennis’ wife, Mary attended. She became interested in taxes, and she got certified. Mary now serves the invaluable role as Screener, and all in the family are volunteering this tax season. Thanks to all of them!
Thank you for your Volunteer Service!
Along with doing over 2000 returns so far this year, last week they hosted a Tax Problem Solving Day. Below are the results and information.
The Advocates saw 20 taxpayers. All eleven appointments came plus nine walk-ins. In all the situations, the taxpayers needed to see an advocate for solution. Some of the taxpayers were referred back to VITA to have returns filed.
The site is also planning on opening one day a month post filing season, in order to help these and additional taxpayers with amendments or problems.
Thank you Patricia L for submitting this “Shout out”
Stay the Course!
With just a little more than two weeks before April 17th, we are steadily moving towards our 4.0 goal, as reflected in our numbers for the week ending 3/25/2018. We will stay the course until the job is done!
Kudos to everyone for helping prepare 293,008 returns! Yes, we are a little short of our weekly projection, but compared to last year, this represents a 2.3% increase. As you can see below, we are quickly approaching the 2.5M cumulative mark. Hats off for achieving a 0.1% increase above last year!
Even with the continued weather challenges in some areas, we continue to see increases in our FSA and prior year return preparation numbers, 5.9% and 53.3% respectively. We’ve also seen a 1.9% increase in our state tax return preparation. Keep it up!
Halfway There!
Keep up the good work!
First, we want to thank each of you for your dedication and commitment to make this a banner year for return production. SPEC’s goal is not only to reach 4 million returns for Filing Season 2018, but also serve more taxpayers and touch more lives by offering as many free tax preparation options as possible. We are confident and poised to accomplish great things this filing season with your assistance.
To help track our progress, we have developed weekly projections to determine where we should be in relation to our 4.0 goal. Each week this message will be updated with our progress and promote SPEC’s theme: SPEC 4.0, Watch us Grow!
For the week ending 3/4/2018, 356,317 returns were projected to be completed. We reached an actual count of 313,542 and are almost at the 1.5 million mark. Our cumulative return count is 1,468,961.
While the actual count is below the SPEC projection, there is still time to narrow the gap!
If you have any ideas on ways to help this initiative, we would love to hear from you! Some of you may consider extended hours or days. Every little bit helps!
Thanks for your engagement and all you are doing to provide free tax assistance to the taxpayers in your community!
SPEC Headquarters
The Volunteers with the United Way of Pasco County in Florida are doing an EXCELLENT job! They have prepared more returns this year so far than they did last year and still going strong! WAY TO GO TEAM!!!
Thank you Kelly S for sharing this message
The volunteers at this AARP site work so well together it is like they are a family. They go beyond the expected and norm, both with each other and with the individuals who come in to have their taxes prepared. For example, while I was there, the greeter saw a few clients were waiting to be called to the preparation room, so she filled the time by informing them of some of the fraudulent tax scams currently taking place. In addition, one of the clients had recently lost her husband and was/is still very emotional. When the greeter saw this, she immediately came to her side to console her and assured her that she was in good hands; that they would take very good care of her. (Her deceased husband had always handled the taxes.) I could continue to outline more examples of how the volunteers work seamlessly together but I think these two examples outline the exceptional volunteers at this site.
These are not volunteers who come together once a year to file taxes for people; these are individuals who welcome any and all to their community and provide the best service they can with a giving and open hearts.
Community Action Partnership of Utah (CAP Utah) continues to do an outstanding job coordinating the statewide VITA program in Utah. From Logan to Saint George and all points in between, they have you covered! Consisting of 9 geographical regions with their very own regional coordinator, the Earn It, Keep It, Save It! Utah Coalition has been around for over 10 years. What also sets them apart is their impressive website at utahtaxhelp.org! There you can find a VITA site, learn about MFT and even sign up to volunteer in one convenient location. Check it out to see how CAP Utah does VITA in Utah and a big applause for their participation in VITA all these years!
Thank you for your volunteer service.
Thank you Kori and Leland for sharing