UW College of Law and College of Business combined to create a Low Income Taxpayer Clinic dedicated to helping taxpayers with consultation and representation services statewide.
“It will give both sides, law and accounting students, exposure,” Mitchell Oler, Department Chair of Accounting and Finance, said. “There is the learning component, but it also gives students the opportunity to see the real-life situations people fall into.”
“For law students, it’s great to learn the tax system because that’s one of the more lucrative areas for law students,” Nicole Choi, Director, and founder of the UW LITC said. “For accounting students, it’s good to know how to work with clients, and they would not otherwise have this opportunity to represent a client in their regular curriculum.”
Not only does the LITC provide services to individuals below the 250th percentile of the federal poverty guideline, but also caters to non-native English speakers when resolving disputes.
“That ESL part kind of gets left out because it’s not in the name, but it’s within the mission of the clinic to represent these populations,” Choi said. “Pro bono work, helping the underrepresented, has always been my goal.”
While the LITC is partially funded by the IRS through a grant, it is a separate organization dedicated to creating resolutions for all parties.
“The IRS has worked really hard to establish these types of clinics in all the states,” Choi said. “They have to find the people and the place to take on this opportunity.”
As a part of maintaining the grant that makes the clinic possible, Choi will also travel across the state working with community organizations to provide educational programs about tax appeals.
“The more aware people are in this state, the more they understand financial literacy the less we will need to have these extra centers,” Oler said. “The more information we get out there, disseminated, the better off everyone is.”
Positions at the clinic will open up to students in the fall when a course has been adapted to fit the project.
As of now, the clinic operates both virtually and in person, but the clinic will not be officially built in the Department of Accounting and Finance until Fall 2022.
