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Privacy Policy

If you are interested in volunteering outside Santa Clara County please go the to the Non-Santa Clara County Online Signup page.

This information is relevant for prospective and returning VITA volunteers for the 2009 Tax Season (2008 Tax Year returns) for Santa Clara County, California.  The information provided will go directly to the IRS Relationship Managers in the San Jose Office and will also be accessible to Santa Clara County Site Coordinators, so if your information is not relevant  for them, it will be quietly ignored and deleted.

Returning volunteers and Site Coordinators in Santa Clara County may know Alexa, the IRS Coordinator from last year.  While she enjoyed her duties in the job, she is now at a different job in the IRS Oakland Office, which is closer to where she lives.  Last year United Way of Silicon Valley was involved with part of the VITA activities in getting volunteers.  At the time of writing, this year The United Way is recruiting directly through their corporate contacts and there does not appear to be any coordinated recruitment efforts with the San Jose IRS office.  The San Jose IRS Office is the dealing with individual site coordinators, and those not affiliated with other organizations.

This website exists primarily to provide information for volunteers in the Santa Clara County, and relies very much on working closely with an IRS VITA representative and whoever else can provide the most recent and relevant information.  It does not want to work at cross purposes with the IRS, SPEC and VITA.  Information on this website is obtained from the IRS San Jose Office, the World Wide Web, the IRS website http://www.irs.gov and other publicly available information.  Although it tries to be as up to date and accurate as possible,  sometimes new information may not be posted in a timely fashion.

At a planning meeting on November 15, 2008 it was decided that all registrations of Santa Clara County volunteers not managed by other organizations will be taken through this website, and you may indicate your choice of sites.  The plan is to direct all requests for information to this website, and to also provide online registration to avoid data entry errors when transcribing from paper forms into the computer. This way all coordinators who choose to do so will know of your interest and may choose to contact you.  If you have registered before for the 2009 season (to prepare 2008 returns), your choice will remain the same.  If you change your mind, you may sign up again with the same particulars, and your new choice will override the previous choice.

Early registration is recommended to take advantage of training opportunities in the last part of 2008.  Classroom Training is also available in the IRS Building in San Jose in January on Saturdays.

The classroom training format this year is a little different.  It is called Process Based Training.  The basic difference is that there will be team teaching effort with 2 instructors - one teaching tax law, and the other running a laptop and demonstrating how to enter the data.

• To get IRS Tax Training, provide information so the VITA Training Coordinator can contact you.

• An email address that you check regularly is required since most communication will be through email.

• Desire to help others, particularly persons with low-to-moderate income

• Ability to successfully meet and deal with people from different backgrounds and circumstances

• Willingness to spend a minimum of 30 hours on the Volunteer Return Preparation Program from approximately February through mid-April 2008

• Successful completion of the IRS tax law and TaxWise training and certification program, generally one to five days in length, depending on previous tax/software training or experience.

IRS Tax Law Training Options:

• Online (link to Link n'Learn).

• Classroom training

IRS TaxWise Training:

• Classroom Hands-on Training

Special Requirements of Specific Sites:

Milpitas Public Library (Formerly known as Milpitas Community Library.
        This site has a dedicated group of experienced volunteers and is seeking to expand in the larger brand new library facilities and needs more volunteers.  Hours are 10:00 am - 2:00pm Saturdays during the Tax season.  Taxpayers come here with challenging returns the very first day of the season, and volunteers need to be prepared to work independently or with a more experienced volunteer the very first day.  We have a strong team of volunteers who are proficient with computers and computer networking.

• Experienced Tax Preparers with little and no computer background are welcome and valuable in their role of Designated Reviewer or mentoring newer Volunteer Tax Preparers
• Mandatory requirements:
  • Volunteers preparing taxes must have filed Federal Income Tax return of their own
  • Familiarity with Microsoft Windows XP, and internet browsers
• Desired: Spanish speaking volunteers

Most Holy Trinity
        This site needs

• 3 Spanish-speaking volunteers who can help on  Wednesdays 6pm to 8pm and/or on Saturdays 9am to 12noon.

Santa Maria Urban Ministry

will be open Wed 6-8 PM and Sat 9-12 AM, Feb 4 - April 15. (no closed days during this period).  Most past volunteers will be back, and an additional 2 more volunteers (bilingual in Spanish) are needed.
 

Go to Santa Clara County online signup form