ENMU College of Business, AARP offering free tax help
By: Connie Zhang
Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: News
|
College of Business faculty and students at Eastern New Mexico University are currently assisting the Portales chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons to prepare free tax-return service for area residents on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 2-4 p.m. in the College of Business Building. The service will be provided until Apr. 8.
Sponsored by Roosevelt County AARP, Internal Revenue Service Foundation and Eastern New Mexico University, the AARP-IRS program, Tax-Aide, gives a big hand for those low and middle-income taxpayers looking for tax relief as well as the senior citizens in the community. Also, those who do not require itemized deductions are free to participate.
"There are many people who have very low income in Roosevelt County, are doing refunds from the state, and they cannot really afford to pay a professional tax return," said Mercedes Agogino, coordinator of the Tax-Aide program for the Portales area, also a retired physics professor from Eastern.
According to Agogino, "Community services have been doing taxes for people for a long time, and we did this program (Tax-Aide in Portales) for two years."
As volunteers, five ENMU College of Business students, including Derenda Tate, Jackelyn Ford, Wantao Li, Jennifer Heredia and Tetyana Tysbenko are under the direction of Ira Kaye Frashier, instructor of accounting to do the tax assistance and preparation work.
Agogino and Frashier review the returns, which are then e-filed for the taxpayers. According to Agogino, the students attended a training session in Clovis in December and January given by the AARP and passed the income tax test to be qualified for service.
"As a senior accounting major student I want more experience before I graduate, so joining AARP Tax return volunteer really helps me a lot to know about tax," Wantao Li, one of the student volunteers said, "I really enjoy helping people with my skill I learned."
Li said many factors could influence how much people can get refunded, but it's mostly based on taxpayers' income during 2007. Moreover, students can usually get around $300 back with their gross income over $3000.