JOB/CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Tax Preparation training

• Beyond Careers has a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program in partnership with the Internal Revenue Service- Stakeholder Partnerships, Education and Communication (IRS-SPEC) to provide free tax preparation to taxpayers in the low-to-moderate income bracket.  Tax Preparation training will be provided, from experienced facilitators, for students and adults.  This is a transferable skill that can be used for the student’s job/career. 
• A VITA certificate will be automatically generated upon successfully passing the tests to become an IRS-Certified volunteer.
• This training would help increase self-sufficiency and confidence.

 Free Tax Preparation

• This is a free tax preparation service which will help families build assets.
• We help increase financial education and asset building (FEAB) of taxpayers in the low-to-moderate income bracket by linking EITC to affordable banking services, allocating tax refund to more than one bank account, purchasing bonds, and savings and asset-building options. 
• Beyond Careers, and its financial institution partners, provide information which helps taxpayers in the low-to-moderate income bracket learn and apply effective household management and budgeting techniques. 
• Our VITA program has reached the $1,668,044 mark for tax refunds and savings in tax preparation fees for 1,018 taxpayers in the low-to-moderate-income bracket.

Technology

Technology will be part of the VITA free tax preparation program as the volunteers will use an online tax preparation program to complete the tax returns. 

Comerica Bank Financial Education Basic Banking Zoom

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RgAGslih4vZlHMRtY5MAMuWAuAlPcYgj/view?usp=drive_web

GetYourRefund/Beyond Careers 

Beyond Careers has teamed up with GetYourRefund.org to help you file your taxes online with the help of IRS-Certified Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) volunteers.

Able to complete your own tax return?

H&R Block has removed the income cap for MyFreeTaxes. It's now free to anyone with a simple return.  http://www.myfreetaxes.com/

Community Service

Students would be able to use their volunteer hours for community service that could be used towards their grades determined by their school. The student can include this milestone on their college and scholarship application, job applications and their resume.

Leadership Development

This will include team building, character development, attitudes, communication, respect, decision making, goal setting, and conflict resolution through service-learning. 

Mentorship

Beyond Careers’ representatives will match the students with one of our partners who will provide up to four hours of mentorship based on the needs of the students. Areas of interest could include topics such as working in the banking industry, types of degrees they may want to consider, after they graduate from high school, related to skills such as tax preparation such as Accounting, Finance, etc. 

Peer to Peer Mentoring

Students who have previous experience in volunteering with Beyond Careers VITA will be able to mentor new students who participate in the program. This would include having new students be part of a study group to prepare for the tests to become IRS-Certified, how to set up their account to take the tests and other areas of the tax preparation process that the new student has the necessary certifications.