By Joe Hirsch
news@huntspointexpress.com
Every year thousands of New York taxpayers seek the aid of tax return preparers to help file their returns. Many are ripped off by unscrupulous or incompetent scammers, say consumer organizations.
Congressman José Serrano says this year the federal government will offer better protections.
The Internal Revenue Service announced in December that it will launch a program to license, test and monitor the work of tax preparers.
“Under this new plan, the tax return preparers would have to pass a minimum of checks to ensure their trustworthiness and their ability to accurately prepare the return,” said Serrano, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the IRS budget.
“While most tax return preparers are ethical and competent, too often we have found out about scam artists who bilk taxpayers out of their money,” Serrano said.
Unqualified tax preparers are found most often “in low-income and minority neighborhoods, where the need for the tax benefits is greatest,” said the Congressman, who added the new oversight will ensure that “legitimate tax writeoffs and benefits do not only flow to those who can afford an accountant, but also to those that walk into a tax clinic in a challenged neighborhood.
Serrano also announced that the IRS has will provide funding to three non-profits that help South Bronx residents with their returns: the Food Bank for NYC/Food for Survival, Inc., the NYC Financial Network Action Consortium, and SEEDCO. The money will fund VITA grants through which volunteers provide free income tax preparation assistance to low-Income, elderly, disabled and limited-English speaking people across the city. (For information, on-line, go to ( HYPERLINK “http://www.vita-volunteers.org/index.htm”http://www.vita-volunteers.org/index.htm).
“The partner organizations do a great job recruiting and training volunteers to help low-income taxpayers to ensure that they are getting all the tax benefits they deserve,” said Serrano said, who helped launch the VITA program..
Taxpayers who earned $49,000 or less during 2009 are eligible for the help.
To contact any of these three agencies for tax help, click on
HYPERLINK “http://seedco.org/about/contact.php”http://seedco.org/about/contact.php,
HYPERLINK “http://www.foodbanknyc.org/go/our-programs/direct-services/tax-assistance”http://www.foodbanknyc.org/go/our-programs/direct-services/tax-assistance, or
HYPERLINK “http://www.seedcofinancial.org/contact”http://www.seedcofinancial.org/contact.