This is a wonderful service learning opportunity for current and past students to give back to our local community in need.
Lana Wang loves working with numbers. She also loves helping people.
This spring, Wang, a student in Milwaukee Area Technical College’s Accounting program, found the perfect spot to do both.
Each Tuesday between February 4 and April 1, Wang and other accounting students are volunteering at MATC’s Oak Creek Campus to help community members, students, faculty and staff with household incomes of $67,000 or less complete their federal and state income tax returns.
“I find accounting fun,” said Wang, a West Allis Hale High School graduate who is in her first year at MATC. “I like the numbers aspect. Plus, I really wanted to do some volunteer work and help people. At some point I’d like to get a teaching degree, but I want to get the accounting part done first.”
The volunteers are part of the federal Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which helps low- to moderate-income individuals, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and limited English speakers file their taxes each year.
Through VITA, tax returns and homestead credit forms are prepared, processed and electronically filed free of charge. The VITA program, started in 1971, has been offered at the Oak Creek Campus for almost 40 years.
See TV coverage of the program
These days, MATC partners with GetYourRefund, a national nonprofit electronic filing service, to process returns. Taxpayers visit https://getyourrefund.org/matc and upload the appropriate documentation.
Current students, graduates working in the field and several trained community members assist eligible clients each Tuesday until April 1 from noon and 2 p.m. and from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the main lobby of the Administration Building. Assistance is available online at https://getyourrefund.org/matc until April 4.
Eligible taxpayers drop off their documents at Oak Creek, the volunteers prepare the returns and the taxpayers return to pick up the completed forms.
On February 4, the first day the service was available, volunteers assisted more than 125 clients, including 75 in person, said Danica Olson, an MATC Accounting instructor who helps run the VITA program.
“I thought the first week went pretty well,” Wang said. “I worked with three clients and it all went very smoothly.”
For Wang and her classmates, their volunteering is part of their coursework. Working with the VITA clients is the college’s Accounting-155 course, Applied Individual Income Tax. They prepare by taking Accounting-121, Income Taxation, and earning at least a B in the course, Olson said.
“These students are doing real taxes for real people,” added accounting instructor Nell Curtis, who helps run the volunteer program. “It’s also a huge service to the community. There is no reason eligible people should pay hundreds of dollars to have their taxes prepared when they can get them done for free.”
This year MATC has also partnered with the Milwaukee Consortium for Hmong Health Inc. to help Hmong residents complete their taxes, Olson said.
“This is a wonderful service learning opportunity for current and past students to give back to our local community in need,” Olson said. “The students who have done it have loved doing it. They feel like they’re making a difference.”
Learn about MATC's Accounting program
About MATC: As Wisconsin’s largest technical college and one of the most diverse two-year institutions in the Midwest, Milwaukee Area Technical College is a key driver of southeastern Wisconsin’s economy and has provided innovative education in the region since 1912. More than 30,000 students per year attend the college’s four campuses and community-based sites or learn online. MATC offers affordable and accessible education and training opportunities that empower and transform lives in the community. The college offers more than 180 academic programs — many that prepare students for jobs immediately upon completion and others that provide transfer options leading to bachelor’s degrees with more than 40 four-year colleges and universities. Overwhelmingly, MATC graduates build careers and businesses in southeastern Wisconsin. The college is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.