Poole Accounting Students Help More than 50 with Tax Returns

During the 2012 personal tax filing season, a group of NC State University Poole College of Management accounting students served approximately 50 clients through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.

Among those is Lloyd Wishon, a senior in accounting with a concentration in internal auditing, who said the experience provided valuable insight about what he might encounter in his future career in accounting.

“Professionally, I learned people from all sorts of backgrounds need help with tax preparation,” he said, “whether they be students with complex financial aid situations or low-income families [that] needed help.” The VITA tax program provides some relief in difficult financial times, he said.

The experience also provided a way to combine the community service hours required by his service fraternity, Beta Alpha Psi, with real world experience in his chosen profession.

The Poole College students had been certified for the VITA program by the Internal Revenue Service, working with one or more accounting faculty who provided on-sight mentorship during the process, said Ernest Carraway, accounting lecturer and lead faculty advisor for the service project for the past several years.

“This was the first year that the students were assisting clients in the preparation of their own personal income tax returns, rather than just completing the paperwork for them,” Carraway said. “In the process, the students gained valuable experience using several types of tax software and hopefully our clients gained the confidence to use these tax programs in the preparation of future returns.”