For the second tax season, the Business Branch of the Carson City Library at the Business Resource Innovation Center is providing free tax preparation through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program through the Internal Revenue Service and United Way Northern Nevada and the Sierra.
As part of providing this valuable service to members of the community that have low-to-moderate income, the BRIC is collaborating with the Future Business Leaders of America club on campus at Carson High School.
Under the supervision of Michael Salogga, BRIC Manager and Betty Foerster, teacher and FBLA adviser at Carson High School, the students have been trained and certified to help prepare simple tax returns with the objective of identifying if a taxpayer is eligible for tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. The BRIC site is the only one in Northern Nevada that has high school students trained and certified as tax preparers.
“With a month to go in this year’s tax season, the students have been an integral part of providing this service to the community. We already doubled the number of returns we completed all of last year. And we have helped taxpayers secure about $90,000 in tax refunds. That is money that goes directly back into the community”, said Salogga.
According to Foerster, this program gives the students an opportunity to see an important part of the impact of our tax system at work. Each student interviews the taxpayer using the protocol setup by the VITA program and inputs the tax data into a software program that is similar to TurboTax®. After the completion of the data entry, every return is reviewed for completeness and accuracy by the site coordinators. “Each tax return is a learning process for the students and they get on-site supervision as well as the resources of the IRS, United Way and the software support staff in case they have questions”, said Salogga.
Tax preparation assistance is offered Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM as well as Tuesday and Thursday evenings until 7:00 PM and Saturdays from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Adult and bi-lingual tax preparation volunteers are also available in addition to the student volunteers.
The Business Resource Innovation Center (BRIC) is affiliated with “Your Knowledge and Discovery Place”, the Carson City Library. The BRIC is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and is located at 108 E. Proctor Street.
The Carson City Library is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and is located at the corner of Roop and Washington Streets. For more information call 887-2244 or checkout our website at www.carsoncitylibrary.org.