CCACC Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Service wrapped up

The Chinese Culture and Community Service Center sponsored the 2023 filing tax season VITA service, which wrapped up on 4/8 at noon. This program was founded in 2013 and has been
carried out solely by CCACC for the past 10 years without stopping, even during
the pandemic. This is the 11th year the CCACC VITA team serves the Asian
American community and has expanded its service to various races starting in
2020, such as friends from India, Korean, Japanese, Southern Asia, the Middle
East, Europe, Russian, South American and South African. We are glad we united
all the people from different countries to get engaged with Chinese culture and
community through the VITA program.

In 2023, the CCACC VITA site will serve from February 4th to April 8th on Saturdays in-person
and weekdays in-virtual. There are about 17 volunteers, from college students
to senior adults, government employees, and retired engineers and CPAs. One of
the UMD Accounting students, Zanna, said that she is so glad to have this
opportunity to utilize her knowledge learned in the classroom in the real world
and help people file tax returns successfully. She will never know what the
earned income credit is or how it came out to taxpayers without seeing the real
practice at the CCACC VITA site. Three of the volunteers are MCPS youth, 9 to
11, supporting the set-up and clean-up, paperwork, and greeting the clients.
They could learn in detail how a program is organized and runs successfully.

85% of the taxpayers served at the CCACC VITA site are Chinese-speaking. 90% have very
little knowledge about tax law and financial or retirement management. The IRS
provides training to certified tax preparers to share with taxpayers year
round. So, both taxpayers and certified tax preparers can learn from this program.
The CCACC VITA site recommends that all taxpayers always consult a tax
professional to decide their financial plan and prepare their tax
returns. You may be qualified to get a tax credit based on your income
level. Taxpayers have the right to save their taxes or get a tax credit based
on the tax law. Carefully judge what the correct or incorrect method is to file
your tax returns accurately. Filing your tax return wrongly may cause you to
spend more time amending tax returns, communicating with the IRS, or affecting
your good record.

Taxpayers Mr. Cheng and Mr. Wang expressed their appreciation that they had to spend money to
get professional tax returns in the past 5 years. They felt very pleased and
safe with the CCACC VITA team’s service when filing their tax returns, with
detailed explanations, patience, and efficiency. When they forget to bring any
tax documents or need to make up income or expense information, they will
provide flexible solutions.

CCACC Executive Director, Rita Lewi, and Director of Community Services of CCACC,
ChiaoChiao Liu held the ending celebration feast to appreciate the VITA team.
Ms. Lewi expressed CCACC’s appreciation and mentioned that CCACC was originally
founded by a group of volunteers. The spirit of volunteerism has been one of
the main reasons for CCACC to keep serving the community for the past 40 years.
CCACC values it very much.

CCACC is honored to provide this special program to our community. In addition to the VITA program,CCACC provides a health clinic, in-home care, senior day care, Evergreen Club
with the nutrition program, senior lifetime learning (English and technology),
an early child or after school education program, and a swimming and tennis
sport program to fulfill the community's needs. CCACC can always connect you to
the other programs you need one day. CCACC is glad to see our team provide
various programs to make our community a better neighborhood. You may find more
information about CCACC's services at ccacc-dc.org and on
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ccaccdc/.