NH Earned Income Tax Credit

We increased # of volunteers, # of volunteer hours, and increased # of tax returns filed by over 62% from last year. We have not yet finished compiling EITC data for this tax season. Our specific goals for this season were to increase capacity of the MCRC site, add an additional site, pilot the web-based version of TaxWise, improve quality, and continue with mobile sites which were successfully piloted last year at Easter Seals. We accomplishes all of our goals as follows:

MCRC site provided 10 tax prep stations compared to 6 which were available last year at this site.
Expanded stations and hours allowed volunteer availability and we saw a big increase in number of returns prepared, specifically during the month of February.
We added an additional site at Elmwood Gardens, and although the volume was light (less than 20 returns) , we successfully piloted the web-based version of TaxWise at this site. This site provided services in February.
Our quality improved; % of rejected returns decreased due to a new quality assurance program which proved effective at identifying errors before filing.
We expanded the mobile sites to other disability-serving agencies and although the other sites did not have sufficient volume, we were able to once again serve many taxpayers at Easter Seals.

3. Budget (what is your budget for your site and source of dollars)

This year we received funding from three sources to support the free tax program and EITC outreach. We received a total of $11,000 from United Way, UNH Cooperative Extension-EITC Alliance, and SNHU's Asset Building Project for People w/Disabilities to help with the costs of supplies and marketing and to assist with paying a portion of the Site Coordinator's salary.

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4. 2006 VITA Results (this will be provided by IRS)

Total # transmitted returns: according to most recent TaxWise generated report to date: 461-MCRC Site only

Total # accepted returns: according to the most recent TaxWise generated report to date: 445-MCRC Site only

Total # EITC returns: 191-unfinished data collection

5. Hours of Operation

02/01/2006 - 04/15/2006
Feb: MCRC - Wed. 10am-7pm, Sat. 10am-3pm

Mon. 4:30pm-7:30pm @ Elmwood Gardens

Thurs. 1pm-4pm - mobile sites

March & April: MCRC - Sat. 10am-1pm

6. # Volunteers

22 (15) Preparers (7) Greeters

7. # Volunteer Hours

Not yet compiled

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8. Source of Volunteers

MCRC paid and volunteer staff, former MCRC employees, IRS employees, MCRC current and former clients, St. Mary's Bank, AARP, and Voluntary Action Center

9. # Clients Served

Taxpayers helped: (not yet compiled)
E-Filed Federal Returns: 461 to date-MCRC site only

10. $ Value of refunds (will get from IRS)

Total refund amount: (not yet compiled)
Total EITC refund amount: (not yet compiled)

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11. Additional $’s saved clients in tax return refund preparation (if you collected this information)

Best Practices (this section looks at what worked best for your site)

12. Site Coordination (what made your site run smoothly and efficiently? how were you successful in reaching targeted clientele?)

Increased marketing efforts, such as postcard reminders to last year's customers, professionally printed flyers distributed to several agencies serving low-income, community presentations. Site Coordinator did not prepare this year, which allowed better quality assurance checks and balances, and allowed more availibilty for answering preparer questions, ect. Received lots of support from IRS for training, assistance with preparing during busy times, recruiting volunteers, ect. It was helpful to have multi-lingual volunteers available; Bosnian, Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, and French.

13. Volunteers (how did you recruit volunteers? what did you do to keep them working at your site?)

Recruited through asset building coalition, St. Mary's Bank, Voluntary Action Center, current & former staff and clients. Expanded training sessions to better prepare volunteers, increased communication between Site Coordinator and volunteers with Memos and more personalized interaction.

14. Media/Marketing (what did you do in the area of media and marketing that increased awareness about your site, EITC, and asset building?)

Agency newsletter, direct mail to previous customers, flyers posted around the city, and community presentations.

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15. Outreach (what other types of outreach activities were you involved in to enhance the effectiveness of your site?)

Partnerships with disability-serving agencies, housing agencies, and volunteer agencies.

16. Coalition Building (if you have a coalition, what made it successful?)

A good core group of active participants; IRS involvement.

17. Future (what are your plans for the future [site expansion, asset building, etc.]? what will you do differently in the future?)

Future plans include:

Increase ability to handle volume of clients so we don’t have turn so many away. We rarely had to turn customers away this year; maybe 10-15 compared to turning away over 100 last year.
Organized effort to recruit more volunteers through corporate volunteer programs. May be able to work w/ Verizon on this.
Expand sites next season, but have more rotating mobile sites instead of one location like Elmwood, possibly at worksites which employ low-income.
Increase hours to provide more evening services during the month of February.
Research the possibility of offering a RAL program option to our taxpayers to be better able to compete with paid preparers. (controversial)

Expand existing services:

We have successfully linked some asset building services, but need to continue working on this.

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