{"id":171277,"date":"2026-02-27T10:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171277\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T10:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:30:19","slug":"united-way-offers-free-tax-filing-service-in-tampa-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171277\/","title":{"rendered":"United Way offers free tax filing service in Tampa Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Americans spend an average of 13 hours and $290 filing their taxes, according to the latest data. <\/a><\/p>\n

But for taxpayers across the greater Tampa Bay region, there’s a better way. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

United Way Suncoast offers free tax preparation services at 35 sites across the five-county region it serves, including Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. <\/p>\n

To qualify, taxpayers must live in a household earning less than $96,000. <\/p>\n

In addition, the nonprofit is hosting its annual Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Tax-A-Thon on Saturday, Feb. 28, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Enoch Davis Center in St. Petersburg. <\/p>\n

Nichole Pe\u00f1a Miller, the senior director of financial security at United Way Suncoast, said the free tax assistance relieves the compliance burden of keeping up with the changing tax code. <\/p>\n

\u201cTax laws change every year,” she said. “Our volunteers will…make sure that individuals get every credit they’re eligible for, and it will be double-checked to make sure that nothing’s missed,” she said. <\/p>\n

She said that taxpayers often leave money on the table, like savings from an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or Child Tax Credit (CTC). <\/p>\n

For taxpayers, like Cheryl James, those dollars matter. She’s a 66-year-old St. Petersburg resident and air force veteran who works full-time at Bay Pines VA Hospital. <\/p>\n

This week, she filed her taxes at the Child’s Park YMCA with an IRS-trained volunteer with United Way Suncoast. It’s her second year using the service. <\/p>\n

“Last year, I got a return. It was only a hot $83, but rather have that than have to pay out,” she said. <\/p>\n

This year, she’s hoping for more savings since she has plans for retirement and an upcoming elective surgery. <\/p>\n

In 2024, a survey of United Way’s VITA customers found that 80 percent of taxpayers who received a refund put it toward basic expenses, reducing debt or saving for the future. <\/p>\n

Last year, the program helped to prepare nearly 10,000 tax returns for families across the region, totaling $10 million in refunds and unpaid fees. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat’s our bill? Zero, yes…just [a] smile. So…they get a smile when they leave,” Thomas Barber, a VITA volunteer of 11 years, said. <\/p>\n

Find a location for United Way’s free tax assistance and make an appointment at UWSVITA.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Gabriella Paul covers the stories of people living paycheck to paycheck in the greater Tampa Bay region for WUSF. Here\u2019s how you can\u00a0share your story<\/a>\u00a0with her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Americans spend an average of 13 hours and $290 filing their taxes, according to the latest data. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[81491,81492,7074,135,137,136,81494,81495,8527,19299,27360,81493,597],"class_list":{"0":"post-171277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-childs-park","9":"tag-enoch-davis","10":"tag-property-taxes","11":"tag-tampa","12":"tag-tampa-headlines","13":"tag-tampa-news","14":"tag-tampa-taxes","15":"tag-tax-deadline","16":"tag-taxes","17":"tag-united-way","18":"tag-united-way-suncoast","19":"tag-vita","20":"tag-ymca"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}