School Awareness

1. How to run an efficient and successful VITA ProgramBy: Nelson Crespo, 5th Circuit VITA Lt. Governor

2. School Awareness • Plan ahead to make the VITA program known throughout your school during the fall semester. • Use student organization fairs. • Circulate flyers and emails. • Schedule information meetings explaining the program and benefits.

3. Explaining the Benefits • Resume builder. • Show future employers and possible internships that you are an active member in helping the community. • If your school has a pro-bono requirement this is a great way to achieve those hours.

4. Great chance to network with individuals who are in charge of and working for other charitable/non-profit organizations in your city. • Creates a beginning understanding of the inner workings of the IRS for those interested in Tax law. • Save yourself money by learning how to complete tax returns and filing your own taxes. • Meet interesting people and really make a difference by helping those in need in your community.

5. Scheduling meetings and increasing student attendance • It is important to increase the amount of students that know about the VITA program. Word of mouth is the best way to increase student participation and attendance in the program. • If your school has a student organization fair at the beginning of the semester, make sure your VITA executive board is ready to participate in it.

6. If your school does not have a student organization fair in the beginning of the semester schedule a few meetings during the fall semester. • Keep in mind the part-time and night students when scheduling these meetings. • Again, gear these meetings toward providing general information and specifically the benefits of the program. • To increase attendance, offer food/snacks at these meetings. Even if the people there only come for the food, they will tell their friends about the meeting they went to…increasing awareness of the program.

7. At Barry, we have a pro-bono requirement. Thus our biggest number of volunteers comes from either ambitious 1L’s who want to get their community service out the way early or those 3L’s that waited to the last minute and are scrambling to complete volunteer hours. • We make sure to emphasize the ability to earn pro-bono hours during the informational meetings.

8. Liability • Another issue that deters people from participating in the program is fear of liability. • So long as a mistake is made without fraudulent intentions or a blatant disregard for the program rules, the preparers WILL NOT be held liable. • This is another important issue to discuss in informational meetings.

9. Funding meetings • Your school should provide you with a budget for the VITA program with which you can use to buy food and or supplies for the meetings. • If your school does not provide you with a budget, the United Way provides VITA programs with a grant. Speak with your faculty advisor, they should know who to contact. If not, you can contact your local United Way office.

10. Contact information • At Barry, prior to the start of the tax season we compile all the emails we collect from students during meetings into a Listserv. This allows us to quickly and efficiently send out mass emails about the program to students. • Speak with your schools IT department to inquire about how to setup a Listserv. • Link to Listserv: • http://www.lsoft.com/

11. Training • VITA requires at minimum completion of the Basic and Intermediate Certifications. • The training, can make or break a successful VITA program. • Because of the difficulty and/or length of the certifications, many students end up losing interest in the program, which in turn leads to less tax preparers. That in turn leads to less tax returns being completed.

12. At Barry, we offer a Fri. or Sat. training in January. • The trainings are scheduled in 3 hour blocks. • 9 am – 12 pm and 1 pm – 4 pm each day. • Scheduled the third week of January. (As close to the start of tax season as possible, so students do not forget what they learned.) • The training is structured to be completed in one of the 3-hour blocks. • Another reason students do not follow through with the program is because they do not like the idea of having to spend time at home completing this. Finishing in the 3-hour block ensures preparer retention.

13. To expedite training, we send the preparers instructions to setup their account with the Taxwise and IRS software, linklearn certification, PRIOR to training. This saves a lot of time and we can then focus on the more important aspects of the training.

14. Your faculty advisor will be able to provide you with the links to setup accounts once they become live. If not, contact your local United Way office, and you should be able to get instructions through them.

15. Create a training coordinator position. • The purpose of this position is to have someone dedicated to helping students to complete training once the tax season has started. • This is a great way to increase the number of preparers, and gives a chance for students who may not have been aware of the pre-season training dates to participate in the program.

16. If you are partnering with any non-profit organizations, invite those who will be tax preparers to participate in the training. • This will help to create relationships and a support system with other VITA sites in your area. • Offer food and drinks at the training. At Barry, we provide dunkin donuts in the am and pizza or subs for the pm sessions. This is sure to increase the number of people who show up to the training sessions. • All officers of the program should have a general understanding of the software and the certifications completed prior to the training.

17. Community awareness • The United Way will have other VITA sites in your community. Reach out to these sites. As stated earlier, this will help to create a support system. • Reach out to other organizations such as Legal Aid or The Coalition for the Homeless in your area. • Contact your local VA office, to offer the VITA service to them as well. • These are great ways to get the VITA name out there and increase the number of returns your school prepares.

18. Visit apartment complexes. Ask management to post flyers advertising your school as a VITA site in their leasing offices or clubhouses. • Remember many middle class families will be able to qualify for the VITA program, with a salary cap of $52,000.

19. Program Hours • Begins first Sat. after January 31st and open every Saturday until the first Sat. following April 15th. • 9 am – 2 pm • Fridays are by appointment and used to prepare fellow students, faculty and staff, and their friends/families returns. • At Barry we are open the Saturday during spring break.

20. Starting off the tax season • Prior to the tax season you will need to have a phone number to provide to the United Way so they can list it on their website. • Make sure to have people manning this number to make appointments and answer any questions callers may have.

21. At Barry we setup our appointments in blocks of 5 every hour. Once the tax season gets underway we adjust this number as needed. • For the first Saturday of the program, we like to have preparers paired off with each other to help ensure smooth filings. Once the season progresses and the preparers become more comfortable with preparing taxes, they complete returns individually. • Make sure to have someone from IT on call during the weekend should you run in to any problems not related to the Taxwise software.

22. Give anyone that is handling the phones a sheet with answers to FAQ’s and information that people wishing to have their taxes filed need to bring with them. • I.e. W-2’s, Social Security Card, Valid ID, 1099’s, Tuition Statements, Cost of child care forms, Social security card of those individuals being claimed, social security benefits, mortgage interest statements, etc. • Some FAQ’s include address of the VITA site, salary cap to be eligible for the program, whether VITA site will complete returns for businesses, rental property, capital gain and losses with regards to stocks, health savings accounts, cancellation of debt (COD) etc. (answers will vary depending on how far preparers in your program completed their certifications)

23. 4-position system to help tax days run smoothly • At Barry we break up our preparers/volunteers into 4 groups. • First, we have the greeters. • Greeters do just that, they greet clients coming to get their taxes filed. They also sign clients in, provide them with the intake/interview sheet to fill out, and make sure that they have brought all required documents the preparers need to file returns.

24. Second, we have intake volunteers. • These individuals go over the intake/interview sheet with the client and answer any questions they may have. • Once the intake volunteers have gone through to make sure the interview sheet is completed and properly filled out, they bring them to the preparers. • Next, there are the tax preparers. • These individuals will prepare and file the clients taxes. • Finally, there are the QC Site Coordinators. • These volunteers play the role of tax preparer during busy hours, and more importantly perform quality control checks of returns prepared to make sure that a return was completed properly before it is filed.

25. You can contact United Way and they may have individuals that are seasoned tax preparers or tax lawyers that can help provide support to your site. • Remember we try our best to LEGALLY get our clients the most money they are entitled to. One way to do this is to ALWAYS go through the Earned Income Credit (EIC) questionnaire.

26. General Tips • At the very least have coffee available for those waiting to have returns prepared. Depending on the number of people that come in, there will be wait times and having even something as simple as coffee makes the waits more bearable. • Do not file returns that are outside the scope of the VITA program or beyond the knowledge of your preparers…no matter how persuasive the client might try to be. • If something does not feel right about a return (i.e. the person may be trying to do something fraudulent), do not complete the return. We are under no obligation to file every return that comes through our doors.