Many college students may find filing taxes to be a foreign concept, but the Albany County Public Library is stepping in to help.
Students and Laramie community members alike can utilize the free VITA Tax Preparation Program at the library, and avoid the hassle of navigating their taxes alone.
Paul Heimer, the executive director of the United Way of Albany County, said the program filed 702 tax returns last year and totaled $840,000 in returns. He has been running this program for many years, and always brings in accounting students from UW to work for him. He said it is a great opportunity for students to get real world experience.
“Boy, if you’re an accounting student, this is a great thing to put on your resume,” Heimer said, “If you show up at a job interview and you have this experience under your belt and another person shows up with the same qualifications except they haven’t actually done a persons tax returns, who’s that person going to hire?”
Heimer said that outside of the technical practice this gives students, it also allows students to get experience dealing with real life people. He said that this program is geared toward people with low to moderate incomes because it does not make sense for these people or families to pay what little they already make to a tax preparation firm.
“Somebody makes $10,000, that’s their income for the year, then they go somewhere and has to pay $200 to get their taxes done, that’s two percent of their income. There’s something wrong with that,” he said.
Christy Bessert, a UW student interning under Paul Heimer, said that while UW has a tax class, volunteering for the program gives students the experience of doing a real person’s taxes. She said that she often comes across strange cases that would not come up in a textbook.
“When you do a return that’s just inside a textbook you don’t really care if they end up owing a $1000, but when you have a real person in front of you, and they end up getting a huge $7000 return you can see the joy on their face,” Bessert said.
Brandon Scott, a PhD student in chemistry at UW, has been going to the VITA Tax Assistance program for three years. He says that this service is good because he has filed taxes for himself in the past and he prefers the security of having somebody who knows what they are doing to do his taxes.
“For me, it’s just peace of mind, I don’t have to fear getting audited or anything,” Scott said. “It takes a little longer, but it’s worth it.”
The program is available for any household with an income lower than $55,000 and will run until April 15. The specific times and dates can be found on the United Way of Albany County website.
