When doing someone’s taxes, divorce seems to be the most painful situation to handle. The dissolution of a household and its financial entanglements are difficult to pick apart. Even standard questions about whether there’s alimony or who provides 50% of the household support for children push emotional buttons. It’s also very hard to tell someone they’ve been under-withheld and have to pay, especially when they’re making less than $30,000 a year. The financial entrails of the tax year reveal volumes about the miseries and joys within people lives – worker’s compensation claims that speak to turmoil on the job, brand new exemptions heralding a childbirth, or filing statuses that change from Single to Married to Single, Single to Married to Widowed to Single again.
Since transitioning out of my corporate job, I have navigated – by accident or fate – into helping prepare taxes for two services. My venerable friend Jeff, also a former bank finance employee, had mentioned for a couple of years his involvement with a volunteer program that handles taxes for low income earners. The program has many names – VITA, TCE, or Earn it! Keep it! Save It! – and many sponsors, from United Way to AARP, all including training, software, and processes under the aegis of the IRS. This sounded like a good way to redirect my energies while deciding what else to do with my time (aside from blogging for you good readers). As I was completing my required exams to certify, I was also asked out of the blue if I wanted to work a few hours a week by my local tax preparer, and it seemed natural to be entering tax data on two fronts, one for free and one for data-entry level wages. Continue reading “Your Tax Dollars at Work”