The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will run a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program to help members of the community prepare and file their taxes free of the charge.

The VITA program will begin on Friday, Feb. 12, and end on Thursday, April 1. The VITA program is supervised by Joshua Kerr, an accounting professor, and staffed by accounting students at UA Little Rock who are volunteering to make a difference in their communities.

Faculty members from the UA Little Rock Department of Accounting and students from the UA Little Rock Accounting Society and Beta Alpha Psi have been training for months to provide tax help for the public. Members of UA Little Rock’s Beta Alpha Psi started working on the VITA program at UA Little Rock in 2017 after learning about the public assistance effort at a conference in 2016.

The IRS’s VITA program has operated for more than 50 years and offers free tax help for those who generally make $56,000 or less, people with disabilities, and limited English-speaking taxpayers.

IRS-certified volunteers provide free basic income tax return preparation with electronic filing to qualified individuals. However, they are unable to prepare tax returns for individuals who are self-employed or contribute to a health savings account.

Due to COVID-19, all tax returns will be prepared remotely. Those who would like to participate in the VITA program should email Joshua Kerr at jckerr@ualr.edu with your name, address, and phone number. A VITA volunteer will contact you within 48 hours.