BSU students provide help with tax forms

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

April 3, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Encouraged by an opportunity to provide a community service and to gain professional experience, 15 Bemidji State University students are helping those with low incomes or disabilities and those who are non-English speaking or elderly complete their tax forms.

Armed with nothing more than IRS-provided tax forms and some basic training, the students set about their task Monday and will continue to provide help throughout the months of February and March.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, the federally assisted program in which the senior accounting students are participating was started by the Internal Revenue Service to help those who could not afford to seek professional help for their taxes, said BSU professor Tim Peterson, who oversees the BSU site.

Another VITA site is conducted at the Senior Center downtown.

The service, in its fourth year at BSU, is staffed by all student volunteers, most of whom have taken taxation classes for their major. They take turns staffing the sessions, and each is working at least eight hours overall said Linde Westrum, a student volunteer.

VITA is in its 26th year nationwide, according to a Volunteer Coordinator Handbook, and in 1994, more than 51,000 VITA volunteers assisted nearly 1.6 million taxpayers at more than 8,600 sites.

Also according to the handbook, volunteers generally include college students, law students, members of professional, business and accounting organizations, and members of retirement, religious, military and community groups. However, even high school students have been known to participate with the help of their teachers.

The program is geared for simple forms, and those with complicated tax forms should seek professional help, Peterson said. However, that does not mean those volunteering are incapable of helping. In fact, they are "very knowledgeable," he added.

Peterson is advising the program for the second year, and said he expects to see a dramatic increase in the number seeking assistance this year due to changes in the tax code. New legislation has mandated that all foreign students attending U.S. colleges must file a tax return even if they did to earn money here last year. That means a number of foreign students will be visiting the tax sessions.

All information concerning a person's taxes is kept confidential, Peterson said, and no records are kept as to who has sought the volunteer help. The only numbers kept track of are how many people are helped at each site.

"We don't even do photocopying of records for the individuals," he said.

"(VITA is) a good way to help people out. It's good for the community and the accounting program at BSU," said Westrum, a senior accounting and computer information systems major from Clearbrook. "It's good experience working with people, and you kind of see how tax work is done ... what it's like."

Although she said she found the first day was interesting, Westrum said she will more than likely not do public accounting for a living.

Anyone is welcome to use the service, Peterson said, and sessions are conducted on a "first come, first served" basis. Sessions are held in Room 010 in the basement of Decker Hall. There is no charge for the service.

Other sessions will be held Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 19 and 20, and there will be another six in March. Contact Jeff Scharpe at 751-8449 or Peterson at 755-3716 for more information.