The VITA program: vital to communities, campuses, students, and employers.

• Author: Chambers, Valrie
• Position: Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program

Sponsoring a VITA program to prepare tax returns for low-and moderate-income taxpayers has many advantages for universities, their students, and future employers.

The urge to "give back" by volunteering time and talents to solve local problems is a value deeply embedded in the American psyche, and the societal benefits of volunteerism are well-known. They include strengthened communities, engaged citizens, increased civic responsibility, and significant contributions to the public good. In addition to helping others, the volunteers themselves benefit through increased connection with their fellow community members, expanded skill sets and networking opportunities, and improved social skills and self-confidence. Volunteers often also have increased levels of happiness, reduced incidence of depression, and, in older adults, even a decreased mortality rate.

The advantages to businesses that hire employees with strong volunteer backgrounds may be less well-known. In particular, businesses that hire those who have volunteered in a quasi-professional capacity through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program may recognize substantial benefits.

This column articulates the numerous benefits students, universities, employers, and communities can gain from the VITA program and provides tips on how to start a program, how to recruit and train volunteers, and how to best ensure a successful experience for all constituents.

VITA Background

VITA is sponsored by the IRS and various community partners such as the United Way. VITA uses volunteers to prepare and electronically file free low-and middle-income federal individual income tax returns. According to the IRS, nearly 96,000 volunteers prepared over 3.6 million federal income tax returns during the 2014 filing season (see the IRS Tax Volunteers page at irs. gov/Individuals/IRS-Tax-Volunteers). Student volunteers at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., and in other university-sponsored VITA programs reinforce classroom learning while gaining practical, professional experience in working with clients that will be useful to them and to their future employers.

These experiences should enable the VITA volunteers to transition more easily to a professional work environment as new hires. In particular, employers can expect to receive some or all of the following benefits from hiring VITA volunteers:

* In this era of increased corporate social responsibility, many businesses desire to be actively engaged in their communities. VITA volunteers, especially those who have volunteered for more than one tax season, have already demonstrated a strong work ethic and a strong sense of civic involvement that may be attractive to prospective employers.

* VITA volunteers go through a structured training and certification program that teaches them not only how to prepare tax returns and how to interact with clients, but also to expect that their work will be reviewed by a site coordinator for quality-control purposes. If problems are discovered through this process, they learn to accept feedback to improve future performance. This commitment to quality service and to accepting feedback is also enhanced by site visits from the IRS regional VITA coordinator and by occasional "secret shopper" visits by IRS personnel.

* VITA volunteers are carefully instructed in the importance of client confidentiality, and they must keep those confidences throughout the tax preparation season and beyond. At Stetson's VITA program, any verified breach of client confidentiality would result in immediate dismissal from the VITA program.

* VITA volunteers also gain confidence and learn the important job skill of documenting their work.

* The ability to recognize when required information is missing is an important business skill, but unfortunately academic education sometimes conditions students to believe that all information needed to solve a problem will be neatly provided to them. VITA volunteers must recognize when information that is needed to prepare a client's return is missing or is problematic, and they must take the initiative to attempt to remedy either situation in a professional manner.

* VITA volunteers begin to perfect their interpersonal skills as they work with a diverse group of clients. They develop the interviewing skills necessary to elicit missing information or to clarify information that is problematic or unclear. They learn to develop a rapport with their clients while...