VITA to help with tax prep

NEW HAVEN —New Life Corporation and the Coalition for Working Families Tuesday announced the 2010 Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Campaign, which provides income tax preparation services for low/moderate income working individuals and families.
The program, which works through the federal Earned Income Tax Credit Program, in 2009 served 2,560 working families and returned more than $5 million to filers in federal refunds and earned income tax credits, New Life said in a statement.
The program assists working individual/family households that earn less than $49,000 a year with are assisted in accessing federal income credits while filing their income tax returns at no cost to them.
"We want to get the word out early to inform the public about this program. No one should be paying to obtain a service they can access free by a volunteer workforce that has been trained and certified by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)" New Life Executive Director Ariel Martinez said in the statement. "In the dire state of economic crisis which we find ourselves, many families are in grave need of any assistance they may access to improve their individual and family financial situation. Our goal this year is to assist over 3,000 filers."
Tax prep help will be available: 6 - 8:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturdays, at Truman School 114 Truman St. and Columbus Family Academy 255 Blatchley St., both in New Haven; 6 to 8:30 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturdays at West Haven Community House 227 Elm St., West Haven. Also, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays at Whalley Avenue Center 302 Whalley Ave., also New Haven
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, NewAlliance Foundation, Internal Revenue Service, Yale-New Haven Hospital and United Illuminating are funding the 2010 program.
For more information call 203-777-1319.