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By the Webmaster, The purpose of this website is to
help those seeking to serve as VITA volunteers.
Some content is based on material provided by SPEC
Relationship Managers. Additional content is
compiled and derived from publicly available information
sources and personal experiences of site coordinators,
volunteers and potential volunteers who communicated
with the webmaster.
If this site directs you to your goal, it would have
achieved its purpose - to get to whoever can use your
services without you having to hunt and be determined to
volunteer.
Feedback collected randomly from visitors indicate
different levels of success in finding information of
interest. It is regrettable that information for
all VITA locations are not available on this site, that
the listings are not comprehensive, and that dates and
times of site operations are not clear. Since
there are large numbers of websites reaching out to
taxpayers, and nationwide outreach efforts of the
IRS and other national organizations to bring
attention of the services provided to taxpayers, this
website was created to fill an information gap
in the supply chain of tax preparation services.
The frustration I felt when initially
trying to volunteer may have been felt by other
volunteers. At the time I had heard rumors from
various sources of volunteer services to provide tax preparation
services to low income taxpayers. Having
recently finished an income tax preparation course, I
wanted to gain experience by volunteering, but found it
almost impossible to do so. It took a while to
learn that it was offered through the
IRS, but it took the operators at the main 800 number of the IRS
a long time to make the connection to anyone who knew
anything about it. After half an hour of being
bounced around different offices, finally the number of
the Franchise Tax Board in Sacramento was provided,
which provided a phone number of someone at the IRS
Office in San Jose. I made the call, only to be
faced with a recording which did not give me any
confidence that I was calling the right place for help.
After subsequently making contact with SPEC, I
noticed that the Relationship Manager patiently answered
the same questions over and over again from different
people to the extent that I could not get my own
questions answered. After hearing the same
questions and answers again, I set up a simple website
in short order to provide the answers to the questions
being asked. Subsequently, additional information
was added to the site. Remembering my frustrations
in trying to volunteer, the site was geared towards
making it a little easier for other potential volunteers
to offer their service.
The 4Q survey that is randomly presented to some
visitors asks open ended questions which many visitors
were kind enough to answer. The responses showed
that many people looking for free tax preparation
services were drawn to this site, and were disappointed
that there was no complete site listings. Some people were looking for answers to
specific Tax Law questions, and they were disappointed
as well.
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