On March 7 and 11, Ms. Laverne’s Accounting IV class will participate in free tax filing nights at Cherokee from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. The event is open to all New Jersey residents and will provide students with service hours and practical experience.
To better understand the event, I spoke to Accounting IV student Nick D’Antonio (‘24).
D’Antonio described how the tax filing night will proceed, saying, “the person who wants their taxes filed will have to give us their 1099, which basically is a whole income summary of that person.”
Participants will also have to provide “a life summary: so basically how much you make, how much you work, if you have any children, if you have a spouse, how long you’ve been married for, that sort of thing.”
Students will also use additional documents if provided, “such as a W2 form, which is specifically an income statement… basically, any files that they give us, we file.”
Using this information, students can “tell [the person filing their taxes] how much they owe, what kind of benefits they get,” according to D’Antonio.
To participate in the tax filing nights, Accounting IV students had to pass a qualifying exam through VITA/TCE, a volunteer organization that helps individuals file their taxes for free.
Students also practiced their tax filing skills through Link and Learn, a website that tests “how many of the concepts you know conceptually,” according to D’Antonio.
To file the taxes, students use Taxslayer, a website where they “input all of the file information of the person that’s trying to file their taxes.” That is how “we compute how much they owe the government in taxes,” says D’Antonio.
When discussing the event, D’Antonio says he hopes “to gain experience,” mentioning that “I really think it’s cool that we’re able to do this, and I think it’s absolutely important that we see how this is done, and we get, you know, some practice under our belts.”
He added, “This time next year, I could honestly get that W2 and calculate how much I owe the government, which I think is a really cool tool to have in your back pocket.”
If you have questions about Accounting IV’s free tax filing nights, contact Ms. Laverne at [email protected] or Nick D’Antonio at [email protected].
