Volunteers Help Residents With Taxes
January 31, 2018 at 7:35 p.m.
WINONA LAKE – The Volunteers in Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program began its ninth tax season Tuesday at Grace College’s Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center with a full schedule of clients and preparers hard at work.
Grace College professor Alan Grossnickle heads up the program. He said households making less than $54,000 qualify for the free program.
“Our typical clients are people on Social Security, or are disabled and on Social Security, or maybe a mother with two dependents making $20-30,000 a year, something like that,” he said. “As long as they’re under $54,000 a year, we can do it with our software.”
The program relies on students and volunteers from the community, but people wanting to get involved with tax preparations face an extensive training process.
“We have a tax class that is just now finalizing and passing the (Internal Revenue Service) advanced tax preparer course. As soon as they pass, they have to volunteer 20 hours,” he said.
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“First, they observe someone who’s already certified to do a return. Then after a while, 6 to 8 hours or so, when they feel comfortable, then we go ahead and let them start preparing tax returns.”
Grossnickle said there are some volunteers who just wanted to take the class to learn how to prepare taxes, but the majority of preparers are either current or full-time professionals or students aspiring to a career in the field.
Volunteers include people from Lake City Bank, 1st Source Bank, DePuy-Synthes and retired certified public accountants in the community.
Great care is taken to ensure the returns are accurate, Grossnickle said, adding that he and the program don’t want any trouble with the IRS.
“Returns are double checked for accuracy and to ensure all deductions are found by a practicing CPA, and if everything is good to go, the program files the returns electronically,” he said.
He said the program is audited each year by the IRS. “We’ve always scored 100 percent on the audits,” he said.
“We’re very high on ethics; we make sure we do everything above board to make sure we don’t have any issues with the IRS.”
The program has grown each year, and Grossnickle said they expect that trend to continue.
“This year our goal is to do 325 tax returns. Last year we did about 295. This is our ninth year, and we’ve helped people get more than $1 million back,” he said.
“This year we may go over $2 million in refunds, and what’s interesting is that’s money that goes right back into the county. People are spending that money right here in the community.”
Grossnickle said an appointment is necessary to use the service, and can be made by calling 211. Clients will be given a list of the documents they will need to bring to the preparer when the appointment is scheduled.
Returns are prepared on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at Grace, and Saturdays at Ivy Tech’s Warsaw campus.
Because of the volume of calls, Grossnickle said patience may be needed to book an appointment.
WINONA LAKE – The Volunteers in Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program began its ninth tax season Tuesday at Grace College’s Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center with a full schedule of clients and preparers hard at work.
Grace College professor Alan Grossnickle heads up the program. He said households making less than $54,000 qualify for the free program.
“Our typical clients are people on Social Security, or are disabled and on Social Security, or maybe a mother with two dependents making $20-30,000 a year, something like that,” he said. “As long as they’re under $54,000 a year, we can do it with our software.”
The program relies on students and volunteers from the community, but people wanting to get involved with tax preparations face an extensive training process.
“We have a tax class that is just now finalizing and passing the (Internal Revenue Service) advanced tax preparer course. As soon as they pass, they have to volunteer 20 hours,” he said.
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“First, they observe someone who’s already certified to do a return. Then after a while, 6 to 8 hours or so, when they feel comfortable, then we go ahead and let them start preparing tax returns.”
Grossnickle said there are some volunteers who just wanted to take the class to learn how to prepare taxes, but the majority of preparers are either current or full-time professionals or students aspiring to a career in the field.
Volunteers include people from Lake City Bank, 1st Source Bank, DePuy-Synthes and retired certified public accountants in the community.
Great care is taken to ensure the returns are accurate, Grossnickle said, adding that he and the program don’t want any trouble with the IRS.
“Returns are double checked for accuracy and to ensure all deductions are found by a practicing CPA, and if everything is good to go, the program files the returns electronically,” he said.
He said the program is audited each year by the IRS. “We’ve always scored 100 percent on the audits,” he said.
“We’re very high on ethics; we make sure we do everything above board to make sure we don’t have any issues with the IRS.”
The program has grown each year, and Grossnickle said they expect that trend to continue.
“This year our goal is to do 325 tax returns. Last year we did about 295. This is our ninth year, and we’ve helped people get more than $1 million back,” he said.
“This year we may go over $2 million in refunds, and what’s interesting is that’s money that goes right back into the county. People are spending that money right here in the community.”
Grossnickle said an appointment is necessary to use the service, and can be made by calling 211. Clients will be given a list of the documents they will need to bring to the preparer when the appointment is scheduled.
Returns are prepared on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at Grace, and Saturdays at Ivy Tech’s Warsaw campus.
Because of the volume of calls, Grossnickle said patience may be needed to book an appointment.