March 2007 Vol. 26. No. 3

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Area Agency public hearings set March 8 and March 12
Senior tax assistance
'Tis the season - Freeman Trust helps pay for spaying and neutering
Owned by our pets
Lunches at home, rides to events, are available
Activities at the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in March

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Senior tax assistance
AARP tax program gets a shot in the arm
by Paula Chernoff

A volunteer-manned tax assistance program sponsored by AARP, that has served the residents of Humboldt County for many years, is now serving taxpayers. We would love more volunteers for next year.

Our program is a vital part of the community. Last year we helped 459 taxpayers. Of these, 239 were age 60 or older. We prepared 375 federal income tax returns and 356 state returns. As a result we were able to recover money for local citizens, money which helped to support our local economy.

More specifically, we recovered $30,352 in earned income tax credit; $12,058 in child tax credits; $2,101 in education credits; $654 in elderly credits and total refunds of $144,772.

Our volunteers prepared these tax returns at four sites in Eureka, Arcata, McKinleyville and Fortuna, as well as at locations in southern Humboldt County. We would like to have volunteers for Crescent City. We can also use more volunteers to travel to Garberville. And we can always use extra people to do "quality review," that is, to check the prepared returns for mistakes before they are filed.

Without our services, the 459 taxpayers we helped would have been stranded. For the most part they could not afford private tax preparation help. And although there are other volunteer income tax assistance sites in the county, these are mainly geared to the needs of college students and to the preparation of simple returns. It would be difficult or impossible for these sites to handle the capital gains, pension, Social Security and similar "senior" tax problems that AARP volunteers are trained to do.

Every year we receive intensive training, both on using the sophisticated software with which we prepare tax returns and on important issues such as customer privacy and security of data.

At the moment we are blessed with new people who are doing instruction and coordination for us; our new coordinator is Bob Hines, who used to supervise the VITA tax preparation assistance at Humboldt State University. Our senior technological coordinator is Earl Rutledge; he has been doing an outstanding job in this program for many years.

Helping people with their income tax returns is extremely satisfying. Not only is it intellectually interesting, but you know you are needed. If you like an intellectual challenge, are not afraid of the computer, and enjoy organizing data and making sense of it, this is a wonderfully satisfying volunteer opportunity.

As a bonus, we get to do our own tax returns using the professional tax preparation software, a real pleasure. Perhaps most important, because of the high quality instruction which AARP provides us, we all feel comfortable and secure in our roles as tax counselors - we either know the answers or know where to find them.

We still need new volunteers for next year. It requires a week of training and 12 weeks of giving a day a week. If you would like to be part of this program, call Bob Hines at 445-8974 or e-mail him at hinesbob@sbcglobal.net; or call me at 840-0568, e-mail spcoff@humboldt1.com; or Earl Rutledge, 443-6673, e-mail erutledge13@cox.net.

Paula Chernoff of McKinleyville has been volunteering with the AARP tax program for eight years.