VITA Training!
VITA is Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. You do all this training, and voila, you are certified to help people who meet certain criteria file their tax returns.
I planned to finish this training today, but I am only on slide 104 of 159. “But Kel!” you say, “That sounds like you’re nearly done!”
Ah yes, nearly done with the third topic. Of approximately a million topics. Or maybe more like 50. But still, not even close.
I would just take the test, and see if I pass, but I keep failing the mini-quizzes that come immediately after the topic I’m quizzed on. Nevertheless, I’m confident I can fill those taxes out correctly!
Update: I went ahead and just took the test and used IRS.gov to help me along. I magically passed! First try! I thought for sure I would fail because you have to calculate exact numbers for some, but it seems like I actually got those ones right, and got the parts I studied wrong. Go figure!
I participated in this program last year, and none of these topics came up. Although I am doing the “basic” certification, the issues are far more complex than any I was faced with last year. For example, they are teaching us about who gets to claim someone as a dependent if like 5 people all contributed to that person’s support during the year.
Last year my partner and I got all of the dependent children, so that was a snap. Oh, and a sweet old man who had only military income, and no dependents or anything. Dependents make taxes complicated!
I will be doing the VITA day next Saturday, so I’ll be sure to post about it!
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I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
Way to go on passing! As long as you have internet access and publications 17 and 4012 by your side, you can handle most situations, even if they’re more complicated than “Basic.” Good luck!
This is awesome – I got word of the VITA program from our firms dept several weeks ago and have been trying to get the word out to our students in hopes that they would be able to help. Go figure, I’m not a tax person (ha!) so congrats on passing!
And cheers for doing your part for not-tax-inclined people like myself who unlike myself are in need of the help.
Thanks for writing about VITA – I never knew it existed. In Canada the program for volunteering at the ICAO’s “low income tax clincs” is much simpler. I suspect that Canadian tax returns may also be much simpler too… good to know how it works down south!