Wake County Free Tax Prep
A Public Service of the Wake EITC Coalition
Free Income Tax Preparation by Volunteers
- Free preparation of your income tax return
- Free electronic filing of your return
- Free direct deposit of your return into your bank account(s)
- Free printed copy for your records
- Most income tax refunds are deposited in your bank account in 10 days!
2011 Sponsors:
2010 Sponsors:
United Way of the Greater Triangle
EITC-Carolinas a program of MDC, Inc.
2009 Sponsor:
EITC-Carolinas, a program of MDC, Inc.
Our Latest Announcements:
-
1 Comment
Free Tax Preparation Site for Low-Income Taxpayers
Raleigh – April 12, 2010 — Congressman Bob Etheridge will visit the Fiscal Progress VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) site in Raleigh on Tuesday, April 13th to promote American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) ’09 tax credits. Read the rest of this entry »
-
4 Comments
This week, the free tax preparation programs at 4 Wake County Human Service offices begin. Three of these locations are new for tax preparation:
The location at the Swinburne office is a returning site, but is also opening this week. For more information (including site hours and directions), click the above links. These locations all serve those who make less than $49,000 OR are 62 or older. They also do not require appointments.
-
No Comments
Just this afternoon, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill allowing taxpayers to deduct donations given for Haitian earthquake relief in 2010 to be counted on their 2009 tax returns.
For this to go in affect, it must also be passed by the Senate and signed into law by the President, which is expected to happen.
If you would like to take advantage of this new deduction, please wait a few weeks until it is signed and the IRS has enough time to update their tax forms. Tax filers who do not owe taxes will not be impacted and can file their taxes when they are ready.
This is not an unprecidented proposal. In 2005, tsunami relief donations were allowed to be counted on 2004 tax returns.
-
No Comments
If you are fortunate enough to receive a steady income paycheck to paycheck, you may notice that your take-home pay in 2010 is less than in 2009. While there may be other factors in your case, the reason why your paycheck shrunk is probably the Making Work Pay credit.
Remember back in March or April of last year when you saw a slight increase in your paycheck? The reason for the increase of take-home pay then was that federal tax withholding was decreased in order to allow you to have your Making Work Pay Tax Credit during the year, not when you file. This amounted to $400 for singles and $800 for married couples, and was taken out of your withholding throughout the last 8 months of the year last year.
The Making Work Pay Tax Credit is back in 2010, but it’s benefit is spread out over 12 months, instead of 8. You’ll still see the full amount in your pay check, but it will coming in smaller pieces with each paycheck. So if nothing’s changed between this year and last, your take home pay would have shrunk slightly, though it still won’t go back to your pre-April 2009 level just yet (if the credit is not extended for 2011, then your take-home pay will go back down to “normal”).
Remember people with multiple jobs or spouse who both work might have been burned in 2009 by having less withheld than they should. If this is you, you may consider adjusting your W-4 so that more is withheld in 2010.
-
No Comments
The Wall Street Journal said in an article yesterday that the IRS is planning on boosting oversight of paid tax preparers in the upcoming years. They will be requiring paid tax preparers to pass a test, pay a registration fee, and receive 15 hours of education a year.
As volunteers sites, our VITA and Tax Aide locations would be exempt from this new oversight. That doesn’t mean that we have no IRS-oversight, as we’ve actually already have those types of quality measures in place. We are in constant contact with the IRS to make sure that we are meeting their strict requirements for how a volunteer site must be run.
Each volunteer who prepares taxes must be certified by the IRS at the level that they are performing taxes. This training and certification is a considerable up-front investment of our volunteer’s time, as it easily can take 20 hours to receive even the most basic level of training. Just one reason why we’re grateful for our volunteers who put time and brain power into serving our community.
Returning volunteers aren’t off the hook, either…they must be re-certified each year!
Requiring paid tax preparers to receive this type of training in FUTURE years is a great idea, but rest assured that when you visit a VITA or Tax Aide site THIS year, your volunteer tax preparer will be guaranteed to have received this training and certification from the IRS.
Couldn’t hurt that it’s free as well, could it?
-
2 Comments
The United Way of the Greater Triangle has announced a new grant to help fund expanded outreach in 2010.
A $13,000 grant will provide support for expanding tax preparation operations within Wake County. These funds will allow for an expected addition of future free tax sites that will be staffed by nonprofit workers and community volunteers.
The Wake EITC Coalition would like to thank United Way of the Greater Triangle and those who help to fund such programs. Together we are able to reach out to those families that are most likely to utilize predatory tax services yet are least able to pay.
-
No Comments
The Internal Revenue Service has considered a registration or licensing requirement for paid tax preparers. This is one of several proposals made by IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman as a means for recovering taxes that normally go uncollected. Read the rest of this entry »
-
No Comments
On Wednesday, February 4 WRAL featured the free income tax prep programs that are serving North Carolina residents. Jason Evans of the State Employees Credit Union (SECU) discussed how appreciative members are that SECU is providing the free service. All branches of SECU are providing VITA as a service to their members and the surrounding community.
Roger Burton with the Internal Revenue Service’s SPEC outreach program explained the various fees that taxpayers were saving by taking advantage of the free service:
This saves the cost of the return preparation fee, the transmission fee and the refund anticipation loan or whatever name it goes by, (which) is something that can be avoided completely, so they do get all the credit and all the money they’re entitled too.
Here are links to the story as well as the video:
Recent Comments