Taxes are a fact of life, and for most people, doing them is…taxing.
So the Southeastern Utah Association of Local Governments (SEUALG) has a program, that under certain conditions, provides free tax preparation services to residents.
The program is called VITA, which stands for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance
One of the parameters to get this service is what kind of return is being prepared. There is a scope of work in which the taxes for people can be done.
Usually, most of the taxes done by the agency are fairly uncomplicated.
“We can do simple returns,” said Jade Powell, who heads up the VITA program for SEUALG. “For instance we can’t do schedule F (farms), taxes with rental properties as part of them, certain kinds of business expenses, non-taxable combat pay (and many other military filings), foreign tax and moving expenses, among others.”
Another factor is the amount of money a filer makes. The program has been set up to help low- to moderate-income taxpayers.
“To quality for the VITA program, taxpayers must bring in their taxes to see if they are within our scope of work,” said Powell. “The amount of money that qualifies is any amount under $54,000.”
The program is active in all counties that SEUALG serves (San Juan, Grand, Emery and Carbon). There are sites in each county where people can take their taxes to be done. Tax documents will be prepared by trained volunteers who have professional supervision over them.
Sometimes people become concerned about just anyone seeing their tax returns. In terms of privacy, all volunteers and people associated with handling tax documents and information sign a confidentially agreement to not divulge information they may see when performing tax preparation.
In addition, all those involved in tax preparation must be fingerprinted and have a background check before they can work on any taxes.
Besides going to the physical sites themselves, individuals can also use websites affiliated with the program to do their own taxes.
“There is a site we use called Myfreetaxes.com (supported by United Way) that individuals can use that lets people qualify up through $65,000 (in income) per year,” Powell said. “To do that you must have a valid e-mail address so they can send information to you.”
People also ask questions about what happens if something is done wrong with the tax preparation that is done by the volunteers.
“In this program, the IRS takes full responsibility if anything goes wrong because of the tax preparation that is done,” Powell said. “Actually, the program is run by the IRS and we report directly to an IRS employee.”
The various physical sites have different kinds of staffing and hours. In San Juan, there are six volunteers; in Moab and Emery County there are three, and in Carbon County 15, 10 of which are students at USU Eastern. The students are under the direction of Henning Olsen, a business professor at the school.
The other five volunteers come from a professional accounting firm located in Price.
To become a preparer, volunteers get 10 hours of instruction and must take a test to qualify.
Last year, sites in the region did 636 returns. The average income for people who had their taxes done was $20,770. The total tax refunds that came back to the region amounted to $638,535, for an average refund of $1,434. First year sites added to last year’s services included the Carbon Senior Center and a site in Castle Dale.
Preparation services began Jan. 25.
IRS program offers free tax preparations for locals
Volunteer tax preparers are already helping local residents file their tax returns this year through an IRS sponsored program, VITA, to assist low- to moderate-income tax filers.