My Life as a Volunteer Tax Preparer – Week 10

Things are winding down in the VITA – AARP Tax Aide Volunteer office. I say this for two reasons. First, the tax filing deadline is upon us, after which our office will close for the year. Second, the “no show” frequency is increasing. Read more

My Life as a Volunteer Tax Preparer – Week 7

For the first time, my weekly experience in the volunteer tax preparer office was somewhat disappointing. Although I met some interesting people and completed 4 of 5 returns, there were none of the uplifting stories that I had become accustomed to hearing. Nevertheless, I think the stories may still be worth telling and learning from. Read more

Free Tax Assistance for Moderate Income and Older Taxpayers

Mr. ToughMoneyLove tries to seek the hard truth about personal finance wherever it may lead.  One of those areas is the confusion and complexity caused by our friends at that wonderful institution, the Internal Revenue Service.  It always bothered me that in addition to sending the IRS so much of our money, many of us were forced to pay others to tell us how much we owed.  Thus, I decided when I had to file my first tax return some 38 years ago, I would learn to do it myself.   For all of these years, I have been waiting for Congress to junk the entire tax code and start over with something simpler, like a flat tax.  I’m still waiting.  Meanwhile, the tax code gets more complex.  Thankfully, tax preparation software came along, making it easier to keep up. Read more