AccountAbility Minnesota
Training Modules
Purpose of grant: To provide support for the Training Modules for volunteer tax preparers
The purpose of AccountAbility Minnesota (AAM) is to provide free tax and financial services to low- and moderate-income individuals and sole proprietors in the Twin Cities and across Greater Minnesota.
AAM has increased its service capacity over several years to the degree that it was successful in 2008 in helping more than 17,500 taxpayers with approximately 8,000 children receive $25.7 million in tax refunds, primarily through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
EITC is the largest anti-poverty program in America that works by awarding tax credits to low-income workers. Up to 20% of Americans eligible for EITC do not access this benefit.
Tax preparation services are delivered by 700 skilled volunteers who receive 12 hours of training. Each tax return is reviewed by an expert Quality Review volunteer who has passed additional certification.
In addition to tax preparation work in the Twin Cities, AAM works with 19 Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) partners in every region of the state offering training and technical assistance on a variety of topics including tax site management, tax law, volunteer recruitment and training, and assistance with fundraising.
AAM’s ability to provide more service across the state is directly linked to the number of volunteers they can recruit and train. An infrastructure investment in AAM’s web-based training systems to support webinar training and more effective electronic communication will allow AAM to increase their cadre of trained volunteers.
AAM plans to expand their reach across the state by updating their website to make it more user friendly and interactive and increasing their capacity to provide webinar-based training and workshops. AAM currently has 700 volunteers across the state including 300 in the Twin Cities (60% of whom serve East Metro clients).
An opportunity to recruit and train more volunteers is expected to result in a 25% increase in metro area volunteers (75 total, including about 45 in the East Metro) and about a 15% increase in Greater Minnesota volunteers (60). Each volunteer can assist about 44 taxpayers so approximately 4,620 more taxpayers will be assisted.
Visit the AccountAbility Minnesota website