There’s a group of high school students across the country bummed that tax season is ending.
For seniors who have spent each of the past four years training for and then preparing tax returns through an Internal Revenue Service program that provides free tax help to lower income individuals, this week marks the end of a defining experience of their high school careers.
On Wednesday, these students will greet their last group of taxpayers, transcribe numbers from their last set of W2s and 1099s and 1040s, and in some cases stay after school for hours until everyone who shows up on Tax Day has their return processed.
For these teenagers, all unpaid volunteers, completing tax returns – often a source of anguish or just annoyance for many adults – has become a source of pride in their communities and excitement about future careers.
“I think it was the best decision I ever made,” says Ashley Gallardo, 18, a senior who helped prepare tax returns this season and last season at Osborne High School inMarietta, Ga. “I feel like this program is a way to give back. And I feel like that’s something I want to do in my life.”
The IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, which provides tax help to lower-income taxpayers and others, such as the elderly or those with disabilities, has volunteer sites at 117 high schools across the country, according to IRS figures. The IRS doesn’t track how many of those sites have trained high schoolers as preparers, though. VITA centers are often set up at local churches, schools or community centers. Volunteers have to pass an exam with the IRS to be certified.
So how do you get high schoolers invested in one of the more mundane and complicated responsibilities of adulthood? “It helps that all the kids are interested in money,” says Angelo Ochoa, a teacher at A.J. Moore Academy of Finance at University High School in Waco, Texas. Ochoa is one of the teachers who trains students for the VITA program at A.J. Moore, one of the larger high school sites. This year it has 82 students certified to prepare returns and expects to complete more than 2,500 tax returns.
For high schoolers on the brink of adulthood, a lesson on tax law may be one of the more practical teaching moments of their young lives.
“I’ve learned how to deal with real-life people and real-life situations,” says Robert Brown, 18, a senior at Osborne High School who has prepared tax returns for the past two years.
“You may not use calculus ever after you get out of high school, but you will always have to file a tax return,” says Michael Devault, a business teacher who started the VITA program at Osborne. “I try to tell them I’m giving them a life skill.” Devault teaches a spring class each year specifically on taxes, and every student helps run the VITA center, some as greeters or scheduling assistants if they don’t pass the IRS VITA exam to become preparers. This year the class has 20 students, and six are tax preparers.
And while students help clients fill out 1040-EZs and itemize deductions, they’re also gaining skills in communication, customer service and empathy, Devault says.
“Sometimes it’s not always the taxes that’s important for them to learn, it’s helping others,” he says. Students say that’s why they’ve continued to participate in the program, and why they’ll miss it after graduation.
“(The people) were so genuine, and they really seemed like they really appreciated the free service that we were offering,” Brown says.
Many students also say they genuinely enjoy the methodical nature of preparing taxes. The process appeals to their sense of order – every number has its place, every complicated situation has an answer. Students often train for months – teachers weave lessons on taxes into curriculum – and study for the VITA exam outside of school in order to pass in time for tax season.
“At the beginning of the year they knew nothing,” Ochoa says. “And now they’re doing stuff people pay preparers to do.”
Some schools offer their services once a week. Others have hours several times a week after school and sometimes on weekends. When someone comes in with a complicated tax situation, Ochoa says he encourages students to turn to the IRS tax guide for help instead of relying on him; some of them even like reading it.
“I like challenges,” says Yanely Duarte, a senior at A.J. Moore who has participated in the VITA program since she was a freshman. “I love actual exact numbers from the IRS and the books that the IRS (gives us). They’re a little complicated, but whenever you get into it and start reading, you want to finish the book. I think, ‘How did they invent this?’ Some of the things in there do not make sense at all.”
Duarte will graduate this year and plans to continue volunteering while taking classes at a local community college next year.
All of the students interviewed by USA TODAY said that the VITA program deepened their interest in pursuing business or accounting after graduation. Brown wants to be an accountant. So does Miguel Jaramillo, a senior at A.J. Moore who started in VITA as a freshman. Duarte wants to study business administration.
“I honestly think that interacting with the people is probably one of the best kinds of experiences you can get from anything,” Jaramillo says. “Your entire life you’re going to have to interact with somebody. You get to learn how to handle those kinds of situations.”
That includes telling people when they owe taxes, something some of the newer students get nervous about, Ochoa says. But he doesn’t let them off the hook: “In those cases we make them go break the bad news.”