By Sarah Pritchett Dalton
A group of Concord University (CU) business students spent this tax season volunteering as income tax assistants.
Offered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program provides income tax return preparation to qualifying individuals free of charge.
As IRS-certified VITA volunteers, these CU students provided the community with a valuable service while adding marketable skills to their resumes. Participating in VITA has become an annual activity for Concord’s Division of Business.
Dr. Cynthia Khanlarian, Concord associate professor of accounting, trains students for the program. Along with being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), she is also an IRS-certified VITA volunteer. Her colleague, Dr. Charlotte Davis, is also a certified volunteer and assists with the program. Davis is an assistant professor of management at Concord and a CPA.
Khanlarian reports that this year, 17 students volunteered a total of 460 hours; they prepared and filed 318 returns and secured $275,360 in federal refunds and $51,904 in refunds from the state of West Virginia for their clients.
“Preparing this many tax returns gives them so much practice that they gain confidence in their ability to prepare a tax return and understand how various events affect a person’s tax liability,” says Khanlarian. “Every student who participated is now trained and capable of taking a job preparing returns. I want to thank all the taxpayers who allowed us to prepare their returns. The people were very kind and gracious.”
Persons who can benefit from VITA include individuals making $52,000 or less annually, senior citizens, persons with disabilities and limited English speaking taxpayers. Basic income tax return preparation is offered along with electronic filing.
Courses available through Concord University’s Division of Business offer the training necessary to become an IRS-certified VITA volunteer.
Khanlarian explains that most students serving as volunteers take Accounting 310, individual taxation, in the fall semester. For the spring semester, they sign up for Accounting 420, VITA Experience.
“They started preparing in December, and meetings were scheduled in January to practice with the software,” she says. “The students have to pass two of the IRS’ online tests to be certified: the ethics test (because we’re dealing with very personal information) and either the Basic or Advanced tests. Some students then choose to take more tests and earn more certifications.”
Shea Boothe is one of the Concord students earning additional certifications. A junior, Shea earned certification for Basic tax returns, Advanced, Military, International, COD (Cancellation of Debt) and HSA (Health Savings Account).
“He also worked almost 40 hours as a VITA volunteer,” says Khanlarian.
Each Concord student was expected to volunteer a minimum of 27 hours.
Boothe’s extra efforts earned him the recognition of being named Concord University’s Outstanding VITA Volunteer for 2014. (Previous winners of the award are: 2013, Hanh Tran and 2012, April Thomason.) This is his first year with the program.
A resident of Red Sulphur in Monroe County, WV, Boothe is majoring in business administration with a concentration in accounting, with plans to graduate in 2016. The satisfaction of helping others, along with gaining practical skills and experience, are perks of being a VITA volunteer, he explains.
“What I liked about being a volunteer is helping others and learning. The people that we helped were so appreciative!” says Boothe. “Yes, I did take a class in tax, but actually preparing and reviewing returns tied it all together. There is only so much that you can learn from a textbook, and you will never know everything about taxes. The best way to learn it is to have a practical experience with it with real people.”
Boothe plans to concentrate on financial accounting in his career, but says it is nice to know that he is capable of having a career in tax accounting as well. “VITA also makes you really appreciate (or not, depending on how you look at it!) the tax system. Every individual is unique and their tax situation is unique. You have practically under an hour to understand a person’s financial situation for a whole year, and you are responsible for making their tax burden as low as you can make it,” he says.
Concord students offered income tax preparation assistance during February, March and April. The majority of on-campus appointments were offered on Monday afternoons and evenings with several Friday and Saturday sessions as well.
Venturing off campus, the student volunteers spent several afternoons assisting senior citizens with their taxes at the Commission on Aging in Princeton.
CU VITA volunteers also participated in College Goal Sunday at Concord’s Athens and Beckley locations on Feb. 9. This event offered one-on-one assistance in completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). College Goal Sunday is coordinated by the College Foundation of West Virginia, the West Virginia Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, GEAR UP and TRiO. Having a completed income tax return was one of the requirements for filling out the FAFSA that day.
Additional information about Concord University’s Division of Business is located at http://www.concord.edu/academics/business
For more information about the VITA program, visit http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Free-Tax-Return-Preparation-for-You-by-Volunteers.
About the Author
Sarah Pritchett Dalton is a staff writer in the Concord University Office of Advancement. She is a graduate of the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University where she focused her studies on public relations. Prior to working in higher education at Concord, she served as news editor of the Princeton Times.
