Tax-time volunteer
Summers and others help working poor file IRS returns
By Mary Brannon, contributing writer
For many, April 15 is a dreaded day — tax day. However, accounting professor Suzy Summers hopes to lessen the frustration and confusion for some Greenville residents.
Summers and approximately 30 other Furman students, faculty and staff work with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA), a free IRS-sponsored volunteer tax return preparation service. People receiving assistance through the program must earn less than $35,000 per year.
Summers, who helped establish the Furman chapter of VITA last year, says the program “provides income tax assistance to people who can't afford to pay for it,
” oftentimes because their
money is needed to buy food
or other essentials.
Tax preparation firms, she says, may charge from $50 to $200 to prepare a non-itemized tax return. For most of Summers' clients — the working poor and others living at the edge of poverty — that's a lot money. And filling out even the most basic tax return can be a formidable task.
“Most of the people we work with are very intimidated by the process. And they have a limited amount of education,” says Summers. “They want to make sure their taxes are done correctly. We help them do that.”
Volunteers hold clinics at three area locations — the Northwest Crescent Center, United Ministries and Triune United Methodist Church — on nights and weekends between January 1 and April 15. Summers said these free clinics are held at times and locations that are most convenient to people in the community.
Summers volunteered with VITA when she was an undergraduate accounting major at the University of South Carolina and reconnected with the program after working with Furman's Lilly Center for the Theological Exploration of Vocation in the summer of 2001.
She and other volunteers, including faculty colleagues Erik Ching (History), Marianne Pierce (EBA) and Bruce Brown (EBA), completed a 20-hour training session in January and now qualify to help others file their taxes using a computer program and laptop provided by the IRS.
Summers describes the interaction with customers as “unbelievably rewarding” because they are so grateful, and many of them find it “hard to understand that the service is free.”
There are thousands of VITA chapters throughout the United States, including several in Greenville. Many volunteers are retired accountants. Some tax preparation firms also operate a VITA chapter.
Because the Furman chapter is new, Summers says the number of people seeking assistance through the program has been limited. VITA volunteers have posted announcements and advertised the service at local community centers, and she expects activity to increase next year once the word gets out.
Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
