Earning enough to file taxes

Jill is a single mother who has not had great success in finding employment to support herself and her children. In 2015, she was able to earn some income by selling items on EBAY. Her attempt to sell items on EBAY became big enough that she thought she should file taxes. Also, some community assistance programs require tax transcripts as proof of income.

While at an appointment for HEAP at Lifeline in early 2016, she saw a flier in the office for free tax return preparation through Lifeline’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. She called the phone number indicated on the flier and spoke with the VITA Coordinator. The VITA Coordinator answered all of her tax questions and set an appointment to complete her tax return with an IRS certified volunteer.

The VITA Coordinator and the volunteer tax preparer spent lots of time helping her understand and organize all of her income and expenses regarding her EBAY activity. It was Jill’s first time filing taxes with self-employment income.

“I found everyone to be patient, knowledgeable, kind and helpful,” Jill explains.

They completed her tax return and she was relieved to find that she would receive money back on her taxes rather than owing money to the IRS. If this service was not provided by Lifeline and the IRS she would have had to pay for her tax preparation and that was not a cost her family could afford. And she felt that if she had tried to complete her return on her own, she knew that she would have missed out on money.

Jill shares that the “VITA program was a blessing to her family.”

She would strongly recommend the VITA program to anyone who needs their taxes done by a reputable and caring agency.