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Volunteers Needed for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program

  • Published
  • 325th Fighter Wing Legal Office
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The base legal office is seeking individuals to serve as Volunteer Income Tax Assistance representatives (VITAs) for the 2010 tax season.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance representatives provide military members, their dependents, and retirees free tax assistance each year, preparing and reviewing income tax returns and answering basic tax questions. Because the VITA program is almost entirely a volunteer program, help is needed to provide this valuable service.

Last year's VITAs assisted Tyndall Airmen in electronically filing more than 1,500 returns, saving those Airmen nearly $270,000 in preparation and filing fees (if a civilian tax preparer had been used) and returning more than $2 million dollars to our Airmen in tax refunds. Volunteer Income Tax Assistance representatives also answered thousands of income tax questions from individuals who elected to file on their own.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance representatives are typically active-duty military, retired military, or civilian employees of base contractor or military organizations. However, anyone who has an ID to access the base is welcome to be a VITA volunteer.

Volunteers need not have any prior knowledge or experience addressing tax issues or preparing tax returns. All volunteers will be provided all of the training needed to assist taxpayers.

Volunteers interested in preparing tax returns must successfully complete an IRS-sponsored training course and pass a certification test. Because tax returns are prepared using computers, volunteers must also have at least a basic knowledge of using a computer keyboard and mouse.

Finally, volunteers are expected to commit to at least two hours of tax assistance per week. The program will be located at the tax center, located next to the legal office in the base support building (Bldg 662), and will run every Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. from January 31 through April 15, 2011. 

To volunteer contact your unit commander or email margaret.loiselle@tyndall.af.mil before January 14.