Tax assistance program begins at Senior Center

Volunteers now booking appointments

By: Mike Conley | McDowell News
Published: February 01, 2012

Starting Thursday, a group of dedicated volunteers at the McDowell County Senior Center will help folks with filing their tax returns.

The Tax Aide program by the American Association of Retired Persons begins statewide today, with free preparation of income-tax returns for people with low to moderate incomes. Almost 80,000 people received help in North Carolina last year from Tax Aide's Internal Revenue Service-trained volunteers, according to Jim Spicer, Tax Aide's volunteer coordinator for the state.

“There's a lot of people out there that need help with their taxes,” said Spicer in a news release. “The more complex they get, the worse it gets. You get a lot of good feelings from people that thank you and say, 'Oh boy! Now I can sleep, now that it's over with.'"

That free help will be available to eligible folks at the county’s Senior Center. A group of experts will be there on Tuesdays and Thursdays to assist with preparing tax returns. They are Jim Cook, Johanna Doktor, Luke Lackman, David Parker, Lorraine Plant and Adam Reed. Cook’s father John, who has been doing tax returns for 32 years, will also be available to assist folks. All are volunteers.

Although this program is through AARP and is held at the Senior Center, Cook said it is not just for the older folks. It is for other people who meet the income guidelines.

“The main emphasis is on the elderly but it is not restricted to that,” he said.

The IRS supports the Tax Aide program, Spicer says, because it reduces the number of handwritten tax returns it receives as well as calculation errors.

"By the time we get through with them, they've been edited by the software, and when they go in they go directly to the IRS computers, rather than have somebody key them in, which makes other mistakes,” he said in the news release.

The volunteer tax preparer will want to see the taxpayer's photo ID and a copy of his or her Social Security card, Spicer says, as well as last year's tax return and any documentation needed for this year.

Cook said he and his other volunteers are trained to do relatively simple tax returns for eligible folks and not those involving businesses and more complex matters.

“We do income tax filing online,” he said. “We do e-filing. We encourage direct deposit of refunds.”

The Tax Aide volunteers will be at the Senior Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Tuesday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m.

The tax preparations are being done by appointment only and the volunteers at the Senior Center are already booked up through Wednesday, Feb. 15 already, said Cook.

Therefore, eligible folks should call now to get an appointment for this free service.

“Come and give us a try,” said Cook.

The Tax Aide program has been around for more than 40 years. Last year, 2.6 million taxpayers used the service nationwide, with a 95 percent satisfaction rate.

For more information, call the McDowell County Senior Center at 652-8953.