Students may be giving the Internal Revenue Service more money than necessary this tax season.
Students can receive help with their tax returns on campus starting this week so they do not make common mistakes, like forgetting to claim their education tax credit, when preparing to file their taxes.
The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program is a nationwide IRS program being offered at ASU to help low-income individuals with their tax returns.
The program is being offered at the College of Law in Armstrong Hall until April 12 from 6 to 10 p.m. on Mondays for international students and Tuesdays for students who are U.S. residents.
People can participate in this free program if their incomes are $35,000 or less, according to the IRS Web site.
Volunteers for ASU's program are all law students who go through IRS online training and take a test to prove competence, said third year law student and ASU VITA coordinator Jared Sorenson. There are 30 interested volunteers who are in the process of being certified and six who have been certified.
Volunteers do not fill out tax forms for students, but help them perform the calculations, he said.
"It's fun to help others because we're teaching them and [it's fun to see] when that light bulb goes off [in their head] and they realize taxes aren't that hard," Sorenson said.
Anthropology senior Penny Wagner is filing for the first time this year and said she would think about participating in the VITA program.
"I didn't even know that [the ASU VITA program] existed, it sounds like a good resource," she said.
The most common mistake students make on their tax returns is claiming themselves as a dependent when they are also being claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return, such as a parent's, said Donald Goldman, senior lecturer in the School of Accounting with a specialty in taxation.
Post-baccalaureate student Jessica Jones is an accountant as well as vice president of activities for the accounting society at ASU West and VITA organizer on that campus. She said places like H&R Block could charge $250 to $400 for the same assistance VITA provides.
Jones and Goldman suggest students download tax forms from the IRS Web site because it is the fastest and easiest way to get the forms.
There are also links on the Web site that connect to several software companies that provide federal tax preparation software. About nine of the sites feature free tax preparation and e-filing for all individuals with no restrictions. State tax preparation costs extra, typically about $20.
"Using tax preparation software is a great idea because it will save you from making mistakes because it asks the right questions," Goldman said. "It is very user friendly."
The deadline to submit tax returns is Friday, April 15.
Reach the reporter at courtney.bonnell@asu.edu.
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