Taxes can be hard. Having an Auburn University student do your taxes for free can be rewarding.
Students from Auburn University can volunteer through SaveFirst, a program that is part of Impact America providing free tax preparation services to low-income families.
“Our purpose is to claim income tax credit,” said Linn Groft, SaveFirst director. “It is the largest federal anti-poverty tax program that exists. The students go through training to get certified by the IRS [Internal Revenue Services].”
James Pinkleton, senior in accounting, said the program was rewarding in many ways.
“It was always cool to see how happy they would be if they were getting a tax return,” Pinkleton said. “Especially if they thought they were getting $200 and ended up with $600.”
Jennifer Mueller-Phillips, director of school accountancy, said the opportunity is beneficial for both students and the community.
“Students are able to turn around and then apply what they learned,” Mueller-Phillips said.
Kerry Inger, assistant professor in accounting, encourages her students to volunteer because low-income families often do not receive the benefits they should.
“A lot of times families are taken advantage of,” Inger said. “Some are very predatory and there’s no recourse if audited.”
Thanks to a new virtual program, SaveFirst has now expanded to include rural areas that weren’t reachable before.
“Some of the students are reaching clients now through conference calls,” Groft said. “Some families were paying $300 for tax advising for simple stuff because a lot of fees are hidden. There has been a lot of crackdown on unethical practices, but there is little regulation.”
Student training requires two days of eight hours each. A test afterward determines if the students are IRS certified and able to handle clients.
“We start with the intake interview to figure out the situation and get a snap shot of their life,” Pinkleton said. “Then we look at the documents and enter everything in the software.”
Over the semester Pinkleton volunteered, he helped about 20 families file their taxes and receive tax returns.
“I worked on Fridays and usually saw about two or three clients a day,” Pinkleton said. “We also did walk-ins.”
Inger said taxes can be especially difficult for low-income families to manage.
“A lot of people are working multiple jobs with kids so they don’t have time to do taxes,” Inger said. “And then imagine the families where you have a single mother or father working multiple jobs.”
Groft believes SaveFirst is benefitting not only low-income families, but also college students.
“Our organization is helping to create a generation of college educated citizens,” Groft said. “And people that know how they can contribute to needs in their community.”
The statistics haven’t been finalized yet, according to Groft, but the current count for families who have been helped in the Auburn-Opelika area is 432.
Eighty-two Auburn University students volunteered through SaveFirst last semester.
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