ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Filing taxes is no easy task. But at SUNY Brockport School of Business and Management, they’re helping that process become easier.

What You Need To Know

SUNY Brockport’s CASH/VITA Program aims to help our community feel more confident about their taxes

 Clients range from local families to students at Brockport or other schools

Faculty members have found this program to spike among international student, providing real-world work assistance and familiatrity to the U.S. tax system

“The VITA program is a program for people in the community to come and get their taxes done for free,” SUNY Brockport School of Business and Management dean Jana Craft said. “And the special thing about that is we utilize our not only our accounting professors, but also our accounting students to help them do that.”

“We’re doing this is really to help the community,” SUNY Brockport lecturer David Jacome said. “As a public institution, our goal is to reach out to the community and help the community as best we can.”

It’s helping low-income residents and college students like Karissa Buchanan.

“I was actually talking to my mom about filing taxes this year, which the year prior I paid $250,” Buchanan said. “It’s kind of hard for me to do something off campus as a first year. And just having turned 19, I’ve never done something like this by myself. So, it’s even harder to manage it online. So having somebody who’s skilled in this is a lot better than just going into it completely blind.”

The CASH/VITA program is run by students under professional supervision assisting the community in feeling more confident about their taxes. Students at SUNY Brockport accounting students are able to obtain IRS certification to acquire practical tax experience while assisting families and individuals in preparing their tax returns. Following a short break during the COVID-19 pandemic, the program has resumed operations in full capacity.

“They do IRS certifications, and they go through what is involved in terms of filing the federal and state taxes,” Jacome said. “And also, we go over some of the new changes in the tax law to make sure that the students are kind of ready for the spring. And in the spring semester, they take another one credit, and that’s where they’re kind of helping the community and the clients, more of a kind of volunteer service based, for the spring semester.

“I recently did my taxes with my parents during the spring break, and seeing the person prepare taxes was like, oh wow, I know what they’re doing now,” college student Brandon Valdez Garcia said.  “I’m seeing like, oh, I do this with my clients as well. I think was shocked me the most is that it seems complicated at first, but as you start doing these tax returns with different clients and you practice beforehand, you start to get comfortable doing it. Because I know the first tax return I was doing and some of my other volunteers here, they were a little nervous at first or we needed somebody to do it. But now I feel confident enough that I can do a tax return on my own.”

Its faculty has found a growing interest in the program, mainly through its international students.

“This is a critical time for international students,” SUNY Brockport chair of accounting James Cordeiro said. “So, this is a great opportunity for them to get actual experience and also to get acculturated to American society. And this way we improve the mix of our students. But I think overall, it really built this sense of camaraderie among the students. You know, it gets they get together to form like a more cohesive group. And it really helps the skills, not just the technical ones, but also the interpersonal skills, which otherwise would be hard to come by.”

“We’ve had an interesting situation where we’ve had more international students enrolled in the program, and that has been really good because usually international students don’t have the opportunity to work on tax returns,” Jacome said. “So, we’ve noticed that there’s been a spike in international students kind of joining the program. There’s been like students that have been going to internships and because they’re kind of restricted in kind of doing some of those internships. We’ve seen that this is an opportunity for them where some of them might not have the ability to go for an internship.”

“International students have had a rough ride this with the changes in the external environment that we can’t control,” Craft said. “International students are always really looking for other opportunities and experiences beyond the classroom. They’re not from here. They don’t have a community. So anytime that they have a chance to find community, they tend to do that. And I’m really happy to hear that.”

It’s providing an opportunity to get hands-on experience with the tax system in the United States and networking opportunities, working alongside partners like the Empire Justice Center, to make it all happen.

“We’ve probably responded to 5,000 phone calls so far,” Empire Justice Center Strategic Partnerships and CASH Program director Yversha Roman said. “Volunteers make our mission possible. We are a VITA site and we’re unable to reach as many clients, if we don’t have more volunteers.”

“I think it’s important to have this program because not one, one, you’re helping people and to, you can build a lot of relationships with, people in this community,” college student Saw Mue. “And I think that in the future, I think this program not only will attract more people, but also lead to more, programs forming. There’s a lot of tax laws, even ones that I’m not really familiar with. So just with all the rules and stuff, I can understand why it can be, a little bit, frustrating and difficult for people, especially those who are maybe a little bit older. So just being able to help them and just take the burden off of them, that’s something that, that’s really great about this program.”

Students are uing what they have learned in class and provide help to real-life situations.

“They’re super community forward,” Buchanan said. “You not only should be helping the students, but the community, which is one of its main goals, is something that’s very considered because of the fact that they understand that community comes first.”

According to SUNY Brockport the service is available to anyone who meets the income requirements — less than $67,000 a year for those with dependents in their household, or less than $37,000 without dependents. Clients range from local families to students at Brockport or other schools.