Posted March 6, 2017
For accounting students, a decade of helping the community
Temple’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program is marking its 10th consecutive year of providing free income-tax service to local residents.
Photography By:
Courtesy of Jim Roese Photography
The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, now in its 10th consecutive year at Temple, gives local residents the opportunity to work with accounting students to file their tax returns for free.
For the 10th consecutive year, students from Temple University are assisting low-income members of the community by filing their income-tax returns for free.
Accounting students from the Fox School of Business are offering their expertise each Saturday through April 8 to assist members of the community in filing their state and federal income tax returns. (The 2017 tax return deadline is Tuesday, April 18.)
Temple’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program operates on the Ambler Campus. Last year, more than $437,000 in tax refunds were issued by the Internal Revenue Service and Pennsylvania Department of Revenue to the 379 clients supported by Fox School accounting majors.
“Over the years, we’ve established relationships with our clientele, many of whom come year after year,” said Steven Balsam, professor of accounting and director of the VITA program. “In one particularly memorable case, while doing his tax return, we discovered an elderly client had not filed for several years. Two volunteers went beyond the call of duty and met with him several times into May to file back tax returns and get him thousands in refunds.”
To qualify for the VITA program, a client’s annual household income must not exceed $54,000 (whether filing independently or jointly). A client also is not eligible if he or she owns rental property or owns a business. Clients can schedule an appointment by visiting fox.temple.edu/vita, emailing vita@temple.edu, or calling 215-326-9519.
Read more about the VITA program.
—Christopher A. Vito
