With tax season come and gone, the Bucks County Opportunity Council (BCOC) is celebrating saving clients $500,000 in tax preparation fees and bringing nearly $2.3 million back into the community.

BCOC’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program, or VITA, prepared 1,577 tax returns this year, which saved taxpayers half a million dollars in tax preparer fees. VITA is an IRS initiative that has been running for 50 years designed to support free tax preparation service for the underserved through various partner organizations. While the program is managed by the IRS, the VITA sites are run by the BCOC, whose volunteers offer free tax help to low-income people who need assistance in preparing their own tax returns.

According to the BCOC, there were 54 IRS certified volunteers who dedicated 3,440 volunteer hours to the VITA program. Since the program was launched in 2005, volunteers have prepared 21,914 returns, resulting in $37.5 million reinvested in the Bucks County community in the form of refunds, credits, and fees saved. This year, a new site was launched at the Epstein Campus of Bucks County Community College. This site helped triple the amount of returns completed, with the five VITA sites in Bucks County totalling $2.3 million back into the community.

“This experience is helpful for building resumes, brushing up on people and problem-solving skills, and building compassion and empathy for different social or financial situations,” said Najet, a BCCC student who volunteered with VITA for the first time. 

VITA is part of the BCOC’s five major program initiatives, with the other four being Housing, Food, Weatherization, and the Economic Self-Sufficiency (ES) Program. For more than 60 years, the BCOC has served low-income families in Bucks County through multiple different initiatives with the ultimate goal to work towards economic self-sufficiency.