Report on April 15, 2009 Special Tax Preparation Session

7 volunteers at VITA @ Milpitas Public Library prepared 16 returns and 1 extension on April 15, 2009 from 5:00pm-8:30pm. Envelopes, postage and personal pickup provided by United Way saved Taxpayers from the last minute trip to the post office to mail their completed returns before the midnight deadline. Because of broad publicity, ABC affiliate KGO-7 was present to interview taxpayers and filmed volunteers helping taxpayer which was televised on the 11 o'clock news.

We could not help several taxpayers because their returns were out of scope. One of them was for Option Exercise income, a second with a large 1099-Misc income, and a third without a W-2, but only a final paystub. We also distributed tax forms, including some that were not commonly used and had to be printed off from a tax forms database.

One special service we provided was explaining why it was important to file the return before the deadline, and the different options for making payments. It appeared that the lowest cost option was requesting a short term textnsion of time to pay.