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What is Volunteer Income Tax Assistance?
Filing taxes can pose a unique challenge for people with disabilities, the elderly, or non-fluent English speakers. Households with low-income levels may also have difficulty obtaining tax assistance they can afford.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) supports an initiative to help people who may require assistance with taxes. Run by various partner organizations across the nation, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program provides free tax preparation services to qualifying taxpayers.
Accounting Students Receive Tax Assistance Training
The VITA program in Dallas and Richardson, TX, benefits from the diligent work of student volunteers from the Naveen Jindal School of Management. Prior to their service in VITA, UT Dallas students undergo certification training to better assist individuals with their tax returns. This training period and the hours spent helping prepare taxes for qualifying people helps meet the 100 hours of community service required for JSOM undergraduate degrees.
What is VITA like for Student Volunteers?
Student volunteers can apply to work with VITA starting in December. Training for certification takes place in January, and students must score a passing grade on their exam to be cleared to volunteer. When tax season begins in February, the student volunteers join other volunteers at their official VITA sites on weeknights or weekends to help people prepare their taxes.
To help people quickly and efficiently, student volunteers are required to know their material well. A site-coordinator is available in case of tougher tax questions, but for the most part students are left to work one-on-one with qualifying taxpayers.
While tax concepts and technical skill are at the forefront of what students take away from the VITA program, it also offers students the opportunity to practice the universal skills needed to work with people. UT Dallas accounting student Marisol Dominguez, who participated in VITA during the 2021 tax season, says the program helped build her skillset in communication and customer service.
What Happens After VITA for Student Volunteers?
VITA empowers student volunteers with the knowledge, skills, and experience to take the next steps in their professional and academic journeys.
Prior to joining VITA, accounting student Phi Nguyen had not taken any classes on taxes yet. She participated in VITA in the spring of 2021 and took her first classes in taxes that summer. Her experience in VITA helped provide a foundation for her classwork, allowing her to see the real-world applications of what she was studying. Putting VITA on her resume also led to her being a top applicant for her Spring 2023 internship with a tax consulting firm called Baker Tilly.
JSOM student Benjamin Matthew, who received the Star Volunteer Award from the Dallas Community Tax Centers for being a diligent VITA worker, says that the experience motivated him to apply as a bookkeeping and tax intern at ZIGO, a tax firm in McKinney, TX.
Marisol Dominguez also went on to obtain a tax internship. She found that even though the clients for her tax internship were very different from the people she helped while working with VITA, much of the knowledge she gained during certification for the program still applied.
How Do Students Get Involved in VITA?
UT Dallas students have been volunteering with VITA for more than 10 years, and the program is of particular interest to undergraduate accounting students. While volunteers certified in tax assistance are the major players at VITA, the program also has need of volunteers who can assist with greeting and other non-tax related tasks
Remember, any participation in VITA applies to the 100 hours of community service required for JSOM undergraduate degrees. Applications to participate in VITA open in December. Contact Kathy Zolton for more information.
