Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program<\/a>, after their involvement last year. The program began at Poly four years ago, the brainchild of a student who was in AP Economics instructor Daniel Adler\u2019s class. Adler continues to run the program with Poly students at the helm.<\/p>\nVITA chapters provide free tax services to people with annual incomes of up to $52,000. Most chapters are run by universities or organizations that provide social services\u2014not high schools. Last year, Adler estimated the team processed about 400 income tax reports, generating over $700,000 in returns for low-wage residents of Long Beach.<\/p>\n
This year, the team hopes to complete 800 to 1,000 reports for members of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s cool to see income coming in for people without much money,\u201d said Frawley.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s customers will be assisted by a brand-new computer lab in Adler\u2019s classroom, which began officially helping this year\u2019s customers on February 6. The students use Voltax Prep, the site provided by the federal VITA tax program.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, the students said, if they advertise well, they start getting people in early. Those who visit in February and March are usually individuals who qualify for refunds. Those who visit in March and April usually owe money.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people who file are significantly under $54,000,\u201d said wren. \u201cIt\u2019s usually the first time they\u2019ve discovered such help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wren detailed a bipolar woman seeking tax help for the first time, who inquired as to whether or not her chihuahua qualified as a dependent when filing her returns. Such examples served to validate the necessity of the program, which is free, in the eyes of the students and Adler.<\/p>\n
Other tax prep companies, such as H&R Block, take a percentage of the tax returns generated for clients. The VITA chapter, in contrast, does the work for free. It seems to be a win-win for the community, as the students learn how to do taxes themselves…years before many people learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cI already know a lot more than my parents\u2014they just have someone else do their taxes and they do nothing,\u201d said Wren.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we started, we didn\u2019t know what a W-2 was, or a 1098-T. You have to start at the very beginning,” said Frawley.\u00a0\u201c[…]It kind of teaches you that it can be manageable.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although spring (in California) brings with it glorious 80-degree temperatures in late February, it also brings the slog of W-2s, Turbo Tax and keeping track of one\u2019s income. Long Beach Poly students are here to help cure people\u2019s tax blues through their chapter of Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA<\/a>)\u2014particularly those most in need of financial help.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":67394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[982],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-long-beach-poly","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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