On Saturdays, Rancho Cucamonga High School’s indoor-outdoor campus can resemble a community carnival.
At 7:30 a.m. last week, teams of spandex-clad Color Guard flag bearers warmed up for a competition on any available piece of concrete. Preparations for a black cultural celebration began.
And at a lower level, in a classroom hosting a “Cash for College” meeting and a study session for AP Chinese students, a group of teenagers filled out tax returns for everyone who had heard about their free clinic.
Three generations of one family came after hearing about the clinic from the fourth generation – their great-grandmother. They brought with them a new relative: a two-month-old baby. A boy in a Spider-Man suit watched Spider-Man videos while his grandparents received help. Two retirees – one a Harley enthusiast and another who arrived on a fancy electric bike – also checked in.
The fact that anyone would trust high school students to prepare their taxes is thanks to a little-known service called VITA, which stands for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. It’s an Internal Revenue Service program that trains people to help their neighbors with the annual task.
To participate, students must complete some form of Income Tax 101 curriculum and then complete tests taken from Form 6744. (The IRS has a form or publication for virtually everything.)
At Rancho, as everyone calls the school, students work under the tutelage of Chris Van Duin, who has taught accounting there for 22 years. Every January, he shows up just after sunrise on Saturdays to serve breakfast burritos to his students.
The day I was there there was soft jazz playing. At his desk, one screen displayed information about the clinic’s clients while another had the Manchester United-Fulham soccer game muted. His cell phone rang every now and then because hospital customers have his private number.
The students streamed in. Calob Chavez, 17, wants to become an investment banker. Destiny Linda, 17, hopes to one day earn a doctorate in business administration. Many of them are now looking over their parents’ shoulders to make sure they file their taxes on time and get all the deductions.
There is no way to predict who will show up on any given Saturday. An identity theft victim attempted to use a special PIN to file taxes. For the first time in seven years, someone else did their taxes. He sat with seven neat stacks of papers in front of him. It looked like he owed over $10,000.
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” said Nicholas Rosales, a 16-year-old junior who took his first accounting class a year ago and is now Mr. Van Duin’s teaching assistant.
Every tax return tells a story. Where do you live? What are you doing? What kind of income does that bring? Who do you educate, shelter and help – and how?
Reading even one return — let alone the 250 or so the Rancho students picked up last year — is a kind of object lesson in personal finance. If you ask the person behind the numbers the right questions, you can learn a lot about how the world works and how to navigate it.
When I first met with the students, they were confused about someone coming the next day. In 2023 she had five jobs. “How do people bring so many people together?” asked Nicholas.
On Saturday morning, Abigail Jimenez, 27, introduced herself and explained. She started the year as a branch manager for hairdressing supplies. After a brief stint as a part-time receptionist, a competitor in the hair supply store offered her a job and she jumped ship.
Then she decided to make a career change. Around the same time, she and her boyfriend moved and she took a new job at a leasing company. When her professional interest eventually shifted to numbers, she found work at an accounting firm, albeit one where tax returns, including those of her employees, are not filed until later in the year.
She wanted to get her refund as quickly as possible, if at all, so she came to the clinic.
By 10 a.m. there were so many customers that there were no students left to help them. Groups huddled around computer screens and entered basic information into TaxSlayer, a software program. The guy with the seven returns was still there, going into the room every now and then to make phone calls.
Would you like to make a comment? “Hoooooooo,” he said, tilting his head back before refusing to say anything else.
Work ends every Saturday at 12:00 p.m. In class, students complete their assignments that they didn’t complete during the Saturday rush.
This year, Nicholas did his own taxes for the first time. “I work at Taco Bell,” he said. “I received a refund of $8. That’s $8 I can use to buy more candy.”
But these refunds can get larger over time if you know what to look for. “There are people who don’t have that knowledge,” Destiny said. “You miss a lot of opportunities.”
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2024-03-01 22:45:50
www.nytimes.com
