Groups to offer students income tax assistance
Fraternity, VITA Committee received IRS training to provide free tax preparation

By DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor

Members of Beta Alpha Psi, a national honor fraternity for accounting, finance and management information systems students at UB, and the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) Committee will offer free income tax assistance to UB students from 1-5 p.m. on March 2-3 and March 9-10 in 122 Jacobs Management Center.

Students are asked to bring with them this year's tax package and/or label, all forms, including W2s and 1099s, information regarding any other income, deductions and/or credits and a copy of last year's tax return.

The IRS-trained volunteers also will be available to help international student with their tax forms, although those services will be offered only on March 9-10.

International students who are required to file tax returns are urged to take advantage of the service, said Roger McGill, interim vice president of human resources, the office responsible for helping the fraternity organize and promote the event this year.

Fraternity members Kevin Weng and Rahul Doshi, VITA committee co-chairs and graduate students studying accounting in the School of Management, said they are excited to be able to help international students this year and recently have received training from the IRS in order to do so.

The fraternity has provided this free tax preparation for UB students for the past several years, said Weng and Doshi, but the service wasn't well publicized until this year.

"This year, we have decided to promote this program and devote our time to those people who are truly in need of our service. Both of us are doing this because we see this as a great event for both the community and our fraternity," says Doshi.

"By providing this service," says Weng, "our fraternity members are able to experience something they cannot learn from the textbook. Our members can also apply what they learn from textbook and IRS training to the real world."

Doshi says that if a student's tax issues are beyond the scope of VITA, the volunteers have been advised to refer the student to appropriate tax consultants.

"This saves students trouble, time and energy, especially during the semester," he said of offering the free service on campus.

"We see this as a win-win situation because both sides benefit, and we hope that we can revive the VITA program that has been Beta Alpha Psi's tradition," says Weng.