History

The VITA Program was created by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 1969. In 2005 about 100,000 volunteers prepared about 1.8 million tax returns in nearly 14,000 sites nationwide.

Baruch VITA was established in the early 1990's. Attracting 150-300 participants every year, it is the largest volunteer opportunity available to Baruch students. New York City has many VITA programs sponsored by many different organizations; Baruch’s program is unique for it is the only university-based program that operates external sites in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, alongside our on-campus site at Baruch College. Our on-campus location serves taxpayers from the neighborhood, Baruch students, faculty and staff (including a large body of international students who are subject to special tax treatment). Baruch, ranked as the most diverse college in the U.S., has an advantage in serving immigrants who have little or no understanding of the English language.

Baruch runs one of the largest VITA programs in the nation. According to the 2004 IRS Annual Report, the breakdown of site sizes is as follows:

While the national average is about 7 volunteers per site, Baruch VITA has surpassed this average by at least 20 times every year since 1998.

Highlights


2010: Year of the Volunteer

The 2009 tax season was one of the best years for VITA in terms of client service and volunteer recognition. In total, volunteers helped over 6,600 clients and helped claim over $6.3 million in refunds, both new highs for the Baruch VITA program. Error rates were few with rates ranging from 2.5% to 3%. Finally, our recognition in the press included CBS News, NY1 News, Korea Times, Epoch Times, World Journal, and Sinovision.

The most exciting project taken on this last tax season was the implementation of e-file (electronic filing) at our Hamilton Fish Library location. We processed over 1,000 State and Federal returns there. It is safe to say the pilot was successful enough for our organization to expand e-file to other external locations.

To make the memorable VITA volunteer experience even more "memorable," one of our initiatives this year is to become more of a club through creation and co-sponsorship of more events for the benefit of our volunteers.

Preparations for the 2010 tax season are already underway and, with eagerness, we hope to make the next year one of the most successful yet.

2008: Year of Communication

2007 was yet another great year for VITA. The number of returns we prepared at our four sites surpassed 3,000 for the first time, a growth rate of over 85% compared to 2006. At VITA, we consistently strive not only to increase the quantity, but more importantly, the quality of the returns we prepare. We were able to maintain our error margin below 3 percent while our client based grew exponentially.

2008 was not any different. We continued to increase our standards of providing free reliable tax preparation services to low and mid-income taxpayers and give paid preparers run for their money. We will also stepped up our efforts to make the volunteering experience unforgettable for our volunteers. To these ends, we have implemented the changes described below to ensure a year of success:

  • Created an organizational structure capable of supporting the needs of our volunteers and providing them with more leadership experience
  • Partnered with Zicklin Tax Society to enhance the quality and depth of services we provide to taxpayers
  • Enhanced training to shift and site managers to ensure that the returns that we prepare are error free
  • Instituted a reward system where our top volunteers for the year will receive personal recommendation letters to the firm of his/her choice from VITA Coordinators and signed by our IRS SPEC Relationship Manager. Nomination and selection criteria will be published in early February.
  • Implemented a dual-time tracking system to ensure that volunteer hours are properly recorded and volunteers receive full recognition for their service
  • Started a weekly e-newsletter for volunteers to inform volunteers of the latest VITA developments and schedules. We will also be creating a column for "VITA story of the week" and "Tax fact of the week" to share funny stories and tax facts with volunteers. Volunteers may submit stories to our VP of Volunteer Relations, who will edit the stories and publish the best ones.
  • Piloted a buddy system that partners up new volunteers with returning volunteers

2007: Year of Momentum

2006 was a great year for VITA. We grew both in quality and quantity. The program underwent major restructuring and innovations. However, we did not stop there, and we took VITA even further. Some of the highlights include:

  • Second revision of website.
  • More support. We were officially supported by the Zicklin School of Business. We thank them for all the resources they allocated to our cause. Beta Alpha Psi was behind us in everyday work. UHY Advisors, our first corporate sponsor, showed their generosity and support. These relationships continue well into 2008.
  • Improved training materials. We created our own VITA Federal Textbook. It is designed specifically for Baruch VITA volunteers. It contains only information you need to know and is full of easy-to-understand examples.
  • Improved training. In 2006 we experimented, and we saw that sample problems do work. So in 2007 we created VITA Federal Workbook with a number of new sample problems that we went over in class during training.
  • Improved testing. We had two tests: a "pre-test", multiple-choice online test before the training, and a "post-test", a mock federal and New York State return that has to be completed in class. We saw this model works really well: pre-test forces students to look over the basics before the training and the post-test gives a real glimpse of what it is like to be a VITA volunteer.
  • Growing numbers. For the first time more than 1,000 volunteers signed up in October-November. During the tax season, we prepared over 3,000 tax returns. That is over 85 percent growth from the prior year!

2006: Year of Growth

For the 2006 tax season, Baruch VITA underwent a major restructuring and, in return, experienced a drastic increase in both quantity and quality. The number of volunteers grew from about 170 in 2005 to more than 250 a just a year. In 2005, a total of about 700 tax returns were prepared. This year, the Baruch site alone prepared more than 750 returns. Our second largest site in Chinatown matched Baruch; another 100 returns were prepared in both the Kingsbay and Hamilton Fish sites. That represents a 240 percent increase in tax returns prepared! At the same time, all returns were now required to be quality reviewed by at least one manager, which also greatly decreased the number of errors made.

The Program Coordinators, seeing plenty of space for improvement and an amazing growth potential, implemented the following changes:

  • Program planning and volunteer recruitment started as early as September
  • First website was created
  • Sign up process was facilitated online
  • Students were trained in smaller groups by professional tax preparers as opposed to a mass lecture in the 5-150 auditorium
  • Training curriculum was created from scratch utilizing PowerPoint (around 500 slides were designed and created by the Coordinators)
  • Examples, practice questions, and a major comprehensive problem designed by Coordinators were incorporated into the training
  • Students were required to pass a take-home exam, comprised of three sample tax returns, and an online multiple-choice exam administered by the IRS. Students received personalized feedback regarding their errors and were required to resubmit their solutions until they got everything right.
  • Site managers/leaders were selected through a standardized interview process, which included a test of their tax knowledge
  • Electronic filing was implemented for the first time at Baruch. Volunteers participated in additional training on the TaxWise software.