Accounting Students at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus Give
Free Tax Filing Preparation for Taxpayers with Lower Incomes
--Hundreds of seniors expected to seek help from IRS-trained students--

Brooklyn, N.Y. – Hundreds of taxpayers with incomes below $40,000, including many seniors, are expected to get free help with income tax returns through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program (VITA). Students from the Accounting Society at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus have been trained to do tax preparation by the Internal Revenue Service.

The VITA program is located at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, at the corner of DeKalb and Flatbush avenues. The hours are Saturdays from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. through April 12. Please note: VITA will not be open on March 22. For more information, please call (718) 780-4043.

Taxpayers should bring identification and social security cards for themselves and their dependents, records of their income including W-2s and 1099s and, if possible, a copy of last year’s state and federal tax returns. Annually, hundreds of people have taken advantage of help from accounting students at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus.

Simmona Young, who graduated last May with a B.S. in Accounting and is now pursuing an M.S. in Accounting, while working full time for an accounting firm, is coordinating the VITA service for the second year in a row. Young, a resident of Fort Greene in Brooklyn, is president of both the Campus’ Accounting Society and its chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants. "VITA is a great program that teaches students and give them hands-on experience, while at the same time helping the community," explained Young. "The VITA program uses E-filing, which takes less time and saves paper as we go toward a ‘paperless’ society." Young has recently accepted a summer internship from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Myrna L. Fischman, C.P.A., accounting professor and adviser to the Accounting Society, helps supervise the service each year. "For more than 37 years, the Brooklyn Campus has helped our neighbors – many of them disabled, elderly or non-English speaking – through the VITA program,” she noted, stressing, “Our services are free, reliable, efficient and rapid."

At the Brooklyn Campus, the Department of Accounting, Taxation and Law offers B.S. and M.S. degrees in accounting, an M.S. in Taxation and a five-year combined B.S./M.S. in Accounting.

Photo available on request.

Posted: March 4, 2008

Media contact: (718) 488-1015