The Internal Revenue Service and scores of its partners nationwide will be open on Saturday, March 29 in an effort to reach those Americans who are eligible for the Economic Stimulus Payments but who are not required to file an income tax return.
Posted by Carolyn Spohrer at 1:14 PM - Categories: Press Releases | VITA
For Ferrum College accounting students, the past few months have been extremely busy. A team of students, led by Associate Professor of Accounting Dave Sulzen, has been crunching the numbers to complete tax returns for low-income people in Franklin County. It is all part of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. This is an official IRS sponsored program, providing students with all the training materials, 3 computers, a printer, and guidance. The program is untended to help low-income individuals in the community to get refunds, and maybe even an earned income credit.
This is the seventh year students have been working with this program. When they first started, they only did 36 returns. However, last year they did over 150, and are expecting to top that this year.
Posted by Carolyn Spohrer at 1:19 PM - Categories: Press Releases | Coalition Partners
New River Community Action’s (NRCA) VITA program assisted with filing the Economic Stimulus rebate returns for 138 qualified individuals. NRCA is a coalition partner of the Virginia CASH Campaign.
New River Community Action (NRCA) helped 190 tax filers avoid paying expensive tax preparation or rapid refund fees by providing 51 Federally-trained, certified Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) preparers at NRCA’s Floyd, Montgomery and Pulaski Area Offices. Volunteers prepared and ?led low-income individuals and families taxes for free with a savings to the tax filers of $38,000 in tax preparation fees.
In addition to the free tax preparation services, volunteers helped determine if tax filers qualified for the federally funded Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC is a refundable tax credit for low to-moderate income individuals and families with earned income. The average EITC refund for NRCA’s VITA program was $962 with a total of $76,021 in EITC refunds.
Eleven families were eligible for the Child Tax Credit for an average credit of $1,326, with credits totaling $14,591.
Posted by Carolyn Spohrer at 11:12 AM - Categories: VITA | Coalition Partners
People seeking to fill out the tax forms to get their federal economic stimulus checks are flooding the VITA free tax assistance sites. About 600 people have gone to the sites to do this, even though it takes five minutes to fill out the 1040A forms and they are available around the community and online, according to Alicia Solomon, coordinator of the HOPE initiative, which operates the three local Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites.
The 600 are in addition to the 264 federal tax returns prepared through February, Solomon said. Those returns refunded $275,344 back to clients; the average refund is $1,122. By comparison, last year, the HOPE Initiative completed 104 free income tax returns, resulting in $93,035 in refunds.
Posted by Carolyn Spohrer at 1:56 PM - Categories: Press Releases | VITA | Coalition Partners
The National Women's Law Center is hosting a free webinar, "Economic Stimulus Payments: What Families Need to Know", to give service providers and advocates the information they need on the economic stimulus payments. The webinar will be held on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. eastern time.
Posted by Carolyn Spohrer at 2:57 PM - Categories: Press Releases
Many low-income people are eligible to receive a $300 to $600 economic stimulus payment –– commonly referred to as a rebate –– from the federal government this year.
To get this payment, low-income individuals must file a simple 2007 federal income tax return showing at least $3,000 in qualifying income. If the IRS does not receive this tax return, no economic stimulus payment can be made.
Posted by Carolyn Spohrer at 3:01 PM - Categories: Press Releases | VITA
From the Fauquier Times-Democrat: "Volunteers Again Offer Tax-preparation Help" - For the second straight year, the Fauquier County Community Action Committee (FCCA) is serving as an IRS-sponsored "Volunteer Income Tax Assistance" (VITA) site, offering free tax preparation for county taxpayers earning $39,000 or less a year.
FCCA has been running the clinic at its office at 50 Sullivan St. in Warrenton since Feb. 5, and will continue doing so through the tax deadline on April 15. The clinic is open every Tuesday and Thursday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a..m to noon.
Posted by Carolyn Spohrer at 2:49 PM - Categories: Press Releases | VITA | Coalition Partners