It’s that time of the year, and Americans nationwide are groaning over old receipts and getting ready to file their taxes. But this year, at Grand Valley State University, studenst are in luck as the Voluntary Income Tax Assistantship (VITA) program guides them less painfully through the process.

VITA is a national tax program that offers free tax services to individuals whom make less than $55,000 a year. Every Saturday, accounting majors from Grand Valley State University volunteer at the DeVos Center to help individuals file their taxes.

Kipchumba Chelilim is an accounting major at GVSU and site coordinator of the VITA hosted at the Pew Campus’ DeVos Center, oversees tax matters of the site, interacts with the head of the program, and answers all tax-related questions. He said he also remains in contact with tax-payers, as well.

“The entire VITA program started out as an IRS initiative,” Chelilim said. “The idea was to offer free tax services to people in the community that can’t afford to pay for their taxes to get prepared. Ever since then, we have networked with community partners including United Way, The Kent County Tax Credit Coalition, and Beta Alpha Psi.”

Currently, Chelilim said that they don’t see a lot of GVSU students come in to get their taxes done; rather they see more people come in from the community. He added that it is only their third year doing the program at the DeVos Center site, so making college students aware is crucial.

“GVSU students should use our program because it is a free service right on campus and was meant for people to use it,” Chelilim said. Chelilim said that while offering free tax services can be rewarding, it presents its own set of challenges, too.

“I run into unusual situations consistently,” Chelilim said. “Sometimes are software doesn’t pick up all issues. Our software performs within a certain scope and can be too complicated for the program, which need to be referred to professionals.”

Samantha Schaeffler, accounting major at GVSU and vice president of community service for Beta Alpha Psi, organizes and schedules volunteers to come in every Saturday to help people file their taxes. She said that she schedules volunteers to come in two to three times during the program, but can also come in when they want too as well. Schaeffler is also a tax preparer at the site.

“After doing more tax returns, I became used to looking for certain information that would come in, and became more confident with interacting with the clients,” Schaeffler said.

Chelilim said that accounting majors from GVSU that participate in this program must go through training over winter break. The first two weeks consist of going over the VITA program and IRS training, including being able to understand the nature of the software program to prepare taxes, as well as going over practice problems. The third week, students take their certification test which determines on whether or not they can become volunteers in VITA.

“We (accounting majors) have an advantage when we run into complex issues because we learn about different things that can happen when preparing taxes in our classes,” Chelilim said.

Overall, Chelilim said that the VITA program is a positive experience for both the volunteers and the customers that come in.

“We give back to the community and families rely on us,” Chelilim said. “Even just filing $100 can make the biggest difference to some people, so that they can pay for bills or put food on the table.”

To sign up to get your taxes done through the VITA program at the DeVos Center in Room 115A, call 616-459-2255 and ask to make an appointment at this location. These workshops are held every Saturday until Apr. 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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