You Just Never Know

Just a comment.

You never know what you are going to get at a tax clinic.

I've had clients sit down with a single W-2, looking like they'll be super-easy, only to hit a snag with some complicated itemized deduction or pension question. The ones that look the easiest -- beware!

Others come in with a schload of complicated-looking paperwork, only to breeze through, done and done.

Personalities can also be a toss-up.

Most people are patient and super-thankful for the help.

But some -- like the husband of one of my clients the other day -- come in angry, stay angry and leave angry. As in scowling, arms crossed angry. As in I asked him his birthday and he kinda grumbled/snapped, "Can't SHE just answer that?" angry. Yeesh! Excuuuse me. The wife was sweet though.

Bummer

My laptop was in that trunk!

But luckily it walked away unscathed...and me too.

Clothing Your Community

Valentine's Day morning, I took the boyfriend and went downtown to volunteer at that weekend-long Clothing Your Community event that fellow VISTA Maureen and I didn't have to work at afterall.



The building was set up exactly like a Salvation Army or Goodwill -- but it was completely FREE.



We were put to work as "personal shoppers," basically helping families find what sizes they were looking for, lugging their bags so they had two hands to shop, and enforcing the 20-minute shopping limit. Needless to say, I was bad at the enforcement part, heh. I think all my families were in there for a half hour or more...ah well.



All the volunteers were told to pull something red from the bins to wear in honor of V-Day and in order to distinguish ourselves from the shoppers. I grabbed a red scarf and then noticed it happened to have a little V-Day-appropriate marking on it. Cuteness.




The event was supposed to be a one-weekend event -- but in only a little over three weeks, I guess the event collected 85 tons of donated clothing!

85

TONS!!

Wow.

Check out this pile of bags of clothes still to be sorted! This photo doesn't even do it justice. It was an ENTIRE ROOM full of trash bags.



So they are going to keep things set up as an ongoing event as long as there are still clothes to give away. Awesome.

The event was a partnership between Cherry Street Mission, LaSalle Cleaners, Pro-Pak Industries, The Andersons, Cumulus Broadcasting, Fifth Third Bank, Toledo Free Press, YMCA and JCC of Greater Toledo, WTOL and H.O.T. Printing and Graphics.

Valentine's Day Miracle

PART ONE:

Ok, not quite Valentine's Day, but the Friday before.

My day was scheduled to be super-booked with teaching a tax training from 930am-4pm, followed by doing applications at a 5pm-9pm weekend kick-off event called Clothing Your Community.

Late in the week, fellow VISTA Maureen and I got a plea from fellow VISTA Sharon in Lima, panicking a bit because her Friday tax clinic in Lima was hemmoraging volunteers. Could we possibly come down last-minute and work??

Um, not really.

But then -- the miracle!

No one signed up for the tax training, so it got canceled.

Then, the Clothing Your Community folks finally got back to us to say that the event had morphed a bit from its original format and they didn't need us afterall. They were very apologetic, but actually it worked out perfectly.

Maureen and I were free to head down to Lima, where we were definitely needed.

The event was solely walk-ins -- and people started arriving an hour early. Take a look at that waiting room! Some waited for HOURS. I'm glad we were able to help out.



This is me on the phone with the IRS and/or Social Security Administration's automated phone system...sooo frustrating! Lots of robot-speak, like "Please say the name of the state you were born." "Ohio." "It sounds like you said Rhode Island, is that correct?" "NO!" "I'm sorry, I did not understand what you were saying", and so on.

(Photos courtesy of fellow VISTA Sharon)

A total of 19 tax returns were completed, with another OBB site in town taking five "overflow" clients. Even then, some people had to leave due to time constraints and were given lists of phone numbers for other OBB and VITA sites in the area. The 19 returns yielded a total of $29,984 in federal tax refunds, $11,614 of which was attributed to the Earned Income Tax Credit! Woo!

Another perk of going to Lima -- I was curious to experience the working atmosphere of another food bank, which turned out to be a huge contrast from the one Maureen and I work at in Toledo. Lima is all carpeted, warm, welcoming and homey. We were jealous :)

PART TWO:

The day wasn't without its stress and drama, however.

After getting to bed late the night before with the promise of getting to sleep in for once, I woke abruptly to my phone ringing at exactly 930 am. It was the Catholic Diocese, where my training was supposed to have been held -- which reminded me that I had completely forgotten to let them know that the training was canceled!

But it turned out that actually wasn't why they were calling.

The web site was down and they had tax clients lined up all day and the tech support people weren't helping. Uh oh. Although I felt bad, there wasn't much I could personally do about that, so I just politely wished them luck and told them to, um, maybe try the help desk one more time??

Next, I redialed the Diocese to apologize for not letting them know sooner that the training had to be canceled, only to get a shock when they said someone WAS there for the class! Oh...CRAP!

At first I thought someone's registration had fallen through the cracks of my somewhat unorganized email...but apparently they had never actually signed up for the class, just showed up. I felt bad, but relieved that one really wasn't my fault either.

I got the person rescheduled for a different day -- just in time for a phone call from a lady wanting to sign up for a tax appointment that weekend! Ahhh! I had to tell her I'd call her right back, while I resigned myself to waking up completely and staying awake and turn on my computer to find the sign-up sheet.

Whew! Quite a wake-up call.

But once all that calmed down and we got on the road to Lima, the day was a success!

And now for some completely unnecessary Wikipedia fun facts about Lima (pop: 38,219). A judge meant for it to be named LEE-ma, after the city in Peru, but the local vernacular of those goll-danged philistines prevailed, rendering it forever LIE-ma.

This one I didn't know: Apperently, gangster John Dillinger spent some time in jail in Lima in 1933 after being arrested for robbing the Citizens National Bank in nearby Bluffton. Dillinger’s cohorts broke him out of jail, killing Allen County Sheriff Jess Sarber in the process. The murder and jailbreak put Dillinger at the top of the FBI's ten most wanted list.

Notable natives include comedienne Phyllis Diller, the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog Ryan Drummond, actors Cullen Chambers and Walter Baldwin, sportscaster Bud Collins, and major league pitcher Gene Stechschulte, the only pinchhitter to have homered on the first pitch ever thrown to him.

Taxes, Taxes and More Taxes

Lately I've been feeling like the days are flying by on a treadmill. Whew!

Clinics. Trainings. Appointments. Out of town several days a week. All taxes, all the time.

It was nice to teach a benefits training the other day just to get a break from all the taxes.

So far, I've co-hosted and/or worked day-long tax clinics in Toledo, Maumee, Paulding, Bryan, Van Wert and Delta.

It's good event-planning and organizational experience. And I'm becoming a tax software pro. I know expenentially more about taxes than I did a few months ago -- which is sad because I'm still no where near an expert. But I do feel a lot more confident with understanding terms, etc.

The other day, I started to do my own taxes using the Benefit Bank and was actually excited about it (dork haha). Then, just to see if it turned out the same -- I went through my Ohio state taxes on the state department of taxation web site. It really made me appreciate the simple, user-friendly format of OBB. And the answer came out the same both places. So I'll stick with the less complicated format, thanks.

Here are some pictures from the last week's clinic in Van Wert (pop: 10,690):




Wikipedia trivia about Van Wert: It is apparently the smallest city in the U.S. to have both an YMCA and a YWCA. Woot! Famous Van Wert-ians include college football coach Larry Smith and NFL players Kory Lichtensteiger and Andrew Crummey

And here are some pics from the Maumee clinic, including the pastor and his wife from Toledo's newest OBB site, Tested Faith Ministries. These guys have really jumped onboard right out of the gate, volunteering at this clinic and making all kinds of plans for community outreach in a north Toledo neighborhood that really needs their service. Thanks, guys!




The clinic started at 10 am, but we had our first walk-in at 9:15 am. We had 17 appointments (only one no-show!) and nine walk-ins. Federal tax returns totaled $17,204, with $15,619 of that coming from the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Maumee (pop: 15,237) is basically a southern suberb of Toledo, but notable natives (courtesy of Wikipedia) include: Civil War general James W. Forsyth, Heisman trophy winner Richard Kazmaier, and Heros actor Robert Knepper.

Top 10

I heard this stat on the news the other night. I'm not sure why, because I think the findings first came out about 4 months ago, but it reminded me that I don't think I ever posted it on this blog.

Of the top 10 poorest (bigger) cities in the nation, Toledo ranks No. 8, with nearly 1 in 4 people living at or below the federal poverty line.

Wow.

Detroit (suprise, surprise) is No. 1 followed by Cleveland No. 2 and Cincinnati No. 7.

I also recently saw a list of the Top 10 cities for residential burglaries in the nation, which listed Toledo as No. 3.

Some familiar cities top that list as well: Detroit (2064 break-ins per 100,000 homes), followed by Cleveland (2057), Toledo (1998), Columbus (1952) and Cincinnati (1865), then FINALLY moving out of the Midwest with Dallas (1814), Tulsa (1794), Atlanta (1781), Charlotte NC (1766), and Indianapolis (1679).(The national average is 814 break-ins per 100,000 households.)

Sadly, when I first saw that list, I was assuming it was a list of the worst in THIS REGION, since the top five are within 4 hours of here, but alas, it was nationwide.

These stats are sad, but they do make me feel like I'm in the right place at the right time.

Storm Warnings

On Saturday, I was faced with a minor weather dilemma.

A storm had been moving through the area and I was slated to drive an hour away to teach a training at Defiance College that morning.

(The beautiful Defiance College library)

I had been hearing horror stories about the roads and the blowing snow and how bad it was out in rural open areas, which make up the final half of that route. My parents called, worried about me driving. A glance out my apartment window in Toledo, where there were no current weather warnings, showed a car off the road, getting dug out. Was that a bad omen?

As the trainer, it's my call to cancel a training and, while it was tempting to just stay home for a leisurely "snow day," I wasn't convinced the roads would be something I couldn't handle. Not to mention that I wasn't keen about having to deal with rescheduling a training, contacting everyone in the class, etc., and just having to do it again on another date.

In the end, I decided the odds for a calculated risk were in my favor. I had a full gas tank, boots, snow pants, blanket, food, water, AAA card, cell phone and South Dakota winter driving experience, I decided to just see how far I could get and turn back if it got too bad. I called to say I would be late.

Turned out all worry was for naught. The roads were perfectly passable and I made it fine.

In fact, I would have easiliy made it on time if I wouldn't have spent time online looking at weather reports, trying to figure out if I should cancel. Oh well.

In the end, I'm glad I made the trip. Although one person emailed saying he was stuck in his driveway (so it must have been bad some places), three of the five students scheduled did show up -- including one that drove down from the Toldo area. So I would have felt like a real jerk/wuss if she would have made that trip only to learn it was canceled...

Entering the Bermuda Triangle

Fellow VISTA Maureen and I spent a good portion of last week on the road, driving to various rural towns for tax clinics.

On each trip, we came to a point where our GPS went nutso. The arrow jumped off the road, making crazy dotted-line pattens off the grid in a field. It told us to turn left, then just as we approached the turn, the arrow jumped right and told us to turn right.

Whatever that was about, we finally made it to each location.

In Paulding (pictured above, at a senior center with sweet chessboard tables), I helped a couple who had already filed their taxes but felt like something was wrong about it. When I ran their information through the Benefit Bank, they were told they were due a federal refund of about $6,000! The return they actually filed was no where near that amount. Even the income dollar amount was off on that one. We couldn't file the OBB version since they had already filed, but they were very appreciative for the help and plan to file an ammended return.

Later that day, I helped a lady who was recently divorced and very nervous about handling her own finances again. I spent nearly four hours with her. We did federal, state and school district taxes as well as a FAFSA and a food stamp application. She kept saying thank you so much, thank you so much for taking the time to help me, that I was kind of getting embarrased. It was no big deal. But I feel good that I could take a weight off her shoulders. I hope everything works out for her.

The next day, in Bryan, I ran into some snags. After one successful tax return, I had a couple who ended up producing an obscure form the OBB can't handle so we had to quit in the middle.

Then just as the clinic was starting to wrap up, I had a lady come in who at first appeared to be the simplest client yet. Just one easy cheesy W-2. BUT, then we came to deductions and she decided to itemize. She was a truck driver, and we got a little bogged down in per diem rates and expenses. (She said she's on the road about 320 days of the year, wow!) We were on the phone with the IRS and the supervisor of the clinic and everyone was tearing down and cleaning up around us.

I felt bad for Maureen because we rode together and she was held up because of me, but we eventually figured it out. At least the truck driver lady was satisfied. I'm not completely convinced we did it right...but oh well.

stop ur txting!

Welcome, alice nelson, to The Benefit Bank!

I see this in nearly every training. Entering information in all lower-case letters. Evidence of a culture far too saturated with texting and casual email communication.

And it makes me cringe a little inside. (Probably the English major, grammar nerd and former copy editor in me.)

And it's not just the young whippersnappers who are doing it!

No one seems to notice it looks odd or unprofessional to fill out a form using all lower-case letters. Other trainers I've talked to have noticed the same thing.

When I see people do this, I am always torn whether to correct them, suggesting that, hey, perhaps you'd like to capitalize your proper nouns? I worry it seems overly picky or unnecessarily rude, especially considering the information overload that all-day trainings can be for some people.

For a while, I had been letting it slide, because afterall it IS just practice. Lower-case letters should be the least of my worries, right?

But today I decided I need to start speaking up.

No offense to my beloved baby sister, but after watching her handwrite a Christmas thank-you note using such ... words? ... as "thx" and "ur" without batting an eyelash, I can see this has the tendency to become so ingrained as to be unconscious.

It made me face the realization that counselors are not being lax with letters because they know they are just practicing, but because it is what they are used to and it won't change when they are with a real client.

whew. sry 4 the rant. thx for listening.