Tax season is here and volunteers are prepared to help Carroll County residents file their tax returns.
The Internal Revenue Service has two free tax preparation programs, one is done directly through the IRS at Human Services Programs of Carroll County and Tax-Aide, sponsored by AARP, is being held at the Carroll County Agriculture Center.
Mike Deutsch, the Tax-Aide district coordinator for Carroll County, said both programs are done in a similar fashion. Tax-Aide volunteers operated out of five different senior centers in Carroll County lpreviously, but facility closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic forced them to find a temporary place to fulfill taxpayers’ needs.
“Everything we do is based on appointments and we don’t do any walk-ins,” Deutsch said. “We’ve had to scale down the number of appointments we can handle and we also lost a bunch of volunteers this year because of COVID. People just didn’t want to mingle with other folks, so they decided to sit out this year, so we have probably half as many volunteers as we normally do.”
There are no age or income restrictions for anyone who wishes to get their taxes done using Tax-Aide’s free service. There are certain limitations based on the type of tax return that are out of scope for what Tax-Aide volunteers are able to complete.
Human Services Programs of Carroll County is offering free tax preparation services through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. VITA is open to those who earned $57,000 or less in 2020 and returns can be filed electronically, in most cases.
HSP’s site hours for the 2021 tax season, which opened Feb. 12, are Monday and Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Thursday from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Due to safety concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic, appointments are required. Anyone who wants to schedule a drop-off appointment can do so online or call HSP at 410-386-6653.
Customers must download and complete the required VITA forms and bring them to their scheduled drop-off appointments along with any necessary tax documents. During the appointments, an IRS-certified preparer will conduct a brief interview with the customer and call when the return is complete.
HSP has put safety protocols in place under guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from state and local government during the pandemic. Temperature checks and COVID-19 screenings will be completed upon entry to the building, face coverings are required during appointments and in all public spaces, and surfaces will be disinfected before and after each appointment.
“The IRS is using the tax return as a way to reconcile people who got stimulus payments and people who didn’t get payments,” Deutsch said. “We’re spending a little bit more time just getting them to think about if they got a check or if they got money back in April.”
Deutsch said unemployment compensation provides a bigger complication during the filing process. Under the Maryland RELIEF Act, Marylanders who received or currently received unemployment benefits will not be taxed for that compensation for tax years 2020 and 2021.
“The state tax system is not configured to handle that properly yet,” Deutsch said. “None of the automated systems we use are set up to handle that yet so if somebody comes in with unemployment compensation, we cannot file their Maryland taxes for them right now.”
Tax-Aide volunteers are operating two days a week and schedule about 35 appointment slots per day.
Accounting, economics, and business administration students at McDaniel College helped prepare free income tax returns for low-to-moderate income taxpayers through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program for more than 20 years.
However, due to gathering restrictions by the State of Maryland and the reduced amount of students on campus, McDaniel is not participating in this VITA program this year due to gathering restriction by the State of Maryland and the reduced amount of students on campus, according to a recorded voicemail message from Jan. 11.
“We have folks who are very appreciative of the work,” Deutsch said. “Because we’re affiliated with the senior centers, we tend to deal with more elderly people and many of those folks don’t have access to a computer. They’re intimidated trying to detach themselves on a paper return, so they’re appreciative to have somebody sit down and actually do it for them.”