Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)
The VITA program is sponsored by WWU's Beta Alpha Psi in cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service.
The training and training materials you will receive are provided free of charge. However, to maximize the effectiveness of our program, we request that you commit to actually providing at least 20 hours of volunteer time in the community assisting taxpayers during this filing period. If you can volunteer 2 to 4 hours per week during the filing season (early February through April 15th), you can easily accomplish this. By committing to these 20 hours, we can ensure that resources are available to assist those who need our help.
By volunteering your time to this endeavor, you will be provided with:
- Training on basic tax law and the preparation of individual tax returns (subject to VITA program limitations);
- The opportunity to process tax returns for electronic filing;
- The opportunity to provide a valuable service to your community;
- The opportunity to achieve a great deal of satisfaction;
- An opportunity to apply your education and experience to real life situations.
If this appeals to you, please complete the Volunteer Registration Form (online). Although the training is free, we request that you sign up (using the online form) as early as possible, so that we can be sure that we have sufficient training materials for everyone.
The VITA training is a combination of self-study, online training and in-class training. The self-study training materials may be picked up at WWU the first week of December. We'll send you more information on pick-up times and locations after you register, and we'll send you links and instructions for the online training. The in-class training is scheduled for 9am to 4:30pm on 2 Saturdays: January 10th and January 24th at Western Washington University. The training will include computerized tax preparation and e-filing training. Once you've completed the training, take and pass the (open book) online test - and get set to help your community and yourself!
We (WWU VITA) will coordinate the VITA sites at Western (at the Viking Union), the Fairhaven Public Library (1117 12th Street, Bellingham), and the WECU Education Center (511 East Holly St, Bellingham). There will also be a VITA site at Whatcom Community College.
We plan to communicate with volunteers primarily through email when possible. Therefore, please be sure to provide your email address (and other contact information) on the online Volunteer Form so that we can send you information on the training, VITA volunteer sites (and times for those sites), and contact information for the Site Coordinators.
Click here for "What VITA Volunteers Can Do for You" (This explains the scope of VITA.)
Click here for our VITA Frequently Asked Questions
Start thinking about your schedule for February through April – be ready (in January) to contact the coordinators of the sites that you choose with the dates and times that you’re available!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME, ENERGY AND SUPPORT!!
Ryan Dales
WWU VITA Coordinator
WWU Beta Alpha Psi and Accounting Society
Western Washington University
Department of Accounting, CBE
Parks Hall 451
516 High Street, MS 9071
Bellingham, WA 98225-9071
trdales@yahoo.com
Volunteers! Click here for links to VITA Volunteer Resources.
ALL VITA volunteers are to be certified for the Basic, Intermediate, AND Advanced Course. To do this you must pass the online VITA Test (Basic, Intermediate, & Advanced segments) with a score of 80% on EACH segment. (The Military, International, & Foreign Student segments are NOT part of the WWU VITA program.)ALL volunteers MUST also read, complete and sign the Volunteer Agreement (in your test booklet) and turn this in. The VITA test should be completed no later than February 1, 2009, since you must pass the online VITA test BEFORE you can volunteer.
