{"id":3788,"date":"2011-04-12T12:35:38","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T19:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=3788"},"modified":"2013-07-31T11:23:33","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T15:23:33","slug":"student-accountants-join-tax-season-volunteers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=3788","title":{"rendered":"Student accountants join tax-season volunteers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Fourteen accounting students at TCNJ are helping area residents in one of the best ways they know how: by preparing their tax returns, free of charge.<\/p>\n

The students, all juniors and seniors who learned their preparatory skills in the College\u2019s Federal Income Taxation course, will be working with the local center for Volunteer Income Tax Assistants (VITA), which is operated by the Mercer County Alliance. As volunteers, the aspiring accountants will spend up to 100 hours preparing tax paperwork for low-income people in the Trenton area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tax code is very difficult,\u201d said C. Andrew Lafond<\/strong>, assistant professor of accounting and information systems, who taught the students the ways of federal income tax over the last couple of semesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese low-income people are eligible for the earned-income tax credit,\u201d which requires paperwork and form-filing, he explained. That\u2019s where VITA lends a hand: \u201cIt\u2019s a way for them to make sure they file their tax return \u2026 (and) if they have a refund coming back to them, that they in fact get it.\u201d VITA is offered by the IRS.<\/p>\n

As a part of his income tax course, Lafond required his students to take the qualifying test for participation in the VITA program. All of his students passed, he said, and 14 chose to work with the nationwide program, which offers internship credit for some participants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re great kids,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not getting paid for this \u2026 they\u2019re getting ready to graduate, some of them even have jobs, but they\u2019re just feeling the need to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collette Shalhoub<\/strong>, a senior participant, admitted that accounting is not the kind of thing people typically associate with community service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be a good opportunity to give back in a profession where it\u2019s not assumed people give back,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Along with the other accounting students, she has already received preliminary training, and she plans to work with VITA after graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople do find doing taxes intimidating, so I at least hope that accounting majors will take advantage of the opportunity to help others,\u201d she said. \u201cThey really do appreciate our help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fourteen accounting students at TCNJ are helping area residents in one of the best ways they know how: by preparing their tax returns, free of charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2011","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}