Time is running out to file your 2011 income tax. You have about a month until the April 17 deadline.
For active duty military personnel, family members, government workers and retirees on Whidbey Island who want a little help, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island offers Volunteer Income Tax Assistance in the Navy Operational Support Center each week day until the end of tax season.
Last year the VITA office helped file 2,200 federal income tax returns and another 550 state income tax returns, and the volunteers did it all for free.
Roger Pierce, coordinator of the VITA office, said the federal returns are pretty standard, but the state returns can be a little tricky.
“There are special rules for each state,” he said. “We work real hard to try to get those right.”
The VITA office at NAS Whidbey may be the last of its kind, according to Pierce. He said the Navy is moving toward self-service Tax Assistance Centers which would allow customers to prepare their own returns using free, online programs on TAC computers, with assistance as necessary from trained volunteers.
“I think the rest of the region has gone to the self-service centers,” Pierce said. “But that prevents almost all retirees from being able to use the service and only junior personnel will be able to get the free tax preparation service.”
Pierce said people who make too much money to qualify for filing free returns would be presented with an opportunity to pay for filing their returns if necessary, and the new system wouldn’t allow active duty personnel to file the forms for state income tax. While he said NAS Whidbey was very helpful in keeping the VITA center this year, he thinks there’s a 50-50 chance the Navy will make NAS Whidbey move to the self-service system next year.
“If it’s a go it will pretty much throw retirees out the door,” said Pierce, adding that retirees make up about 25 to 30 percent of their customers at NAS Whidbey.
The irony in that, said Pierce, is that most of the volunteers working in the tax center are retirees themselves.
“We’ve got about 12 civilians doing about 80 to 90 percent of the work,” Pierce said. “We have about the same number of active duty volunteers, but none of the active duty can do much more than one day a week.”
All VITA volunteers attend comprehensive training and must pass a test to show they are prepared to work with the tax forms. Pierce said there are no big changes to the federal tax laws this year and things have gone fairly smoothly. He said they’ve filed a number of amended returns for people who did their own taxes previously.
“In a lot of cases they’ve just missed things, like credits they qualify for,” he said. “Although sometimes some people don’t report everything they should have. Then they get a letter from the IRS and they come to us and we can try to help them with that, too.”
Pierce, who retired after 25 years in the Navy, began working with taxes because he liked working with numbers. He worked for a tax preparation company for about six years and has been volunteering at the VITA center for the past 10 years, essentially running the service for the past five or six years. The satisfaction of helping people is what keeps him motivated.
This year is no exception to the office’s service. A white board near the entrance to the office lists the number of tax forms filed as of March 6: 1,370 federal returns have been prepared, totaling $3,389,015 in refunds; 323 state income tax returns have been prepared, with more than $119,000 in refunds; and VITA clients have saved more than $270,000 in preparation fees.
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the second floor of the Navy Operational Support Center (Building 2739) on Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Assistance is on a walk-in basis. Anyone interested in using the VITA service should come prepared with all necessary tax documents.
