Volunteer Income Tax Assistance

Helping the Community

In March 28, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program finished the tax season having completed 495returns and 20 amended returns surpassing last year’s record of 431 returns filed. According to the program’s advisor and clinical accounting professor, Dawn Konicek, word-of-mouth has been the program’s strongest advocate for growth. As noted in previous years, the ISU VITA program consistently files more returns on average per student than larger competing schools. Konicek noted that this year’s program was so busy that, for the first time ever, they actually had to turn a few people away on the last day. “We were already so swamped. I felt really bad about that.” Not only has this service been wildly popular and helpful for the local community, but the students volunteering in the program have benefited tremendously from the hands-on experience. “They tell me they learn more from VITA than in the classroom,” Konicek observed. “They interact with clients, which they do not get in the classroom. They experience the tax rush, which they do not get in the classroom.” Konicek also said that this year’s rush helped prepare the students to “be more efficient, to ask the right questions and to take initiative to answer their own questions before coming to me, since I was so very busy each day.”