The Vaquero way of filing taxes
Vaqueros don’t need to worry about the stress of taxes thanks to the help of UTRGV and the non-profit organization United Way who partnered during this tax season to help people make the process of filing taxes easier.
“My Free Taxes” is a website provided by United Way, an organization that focuses their work on meeting community needs, in partnership with the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program to help people file taxes on their own or connect them to a certified volunteer who will guide them through the process.
Aside from being offered to use the website on their own, people are able to visit the U-Central offices on both campuses and be assisted through every step by a VITA-certified United Way tax consultant.
Anyone with an income below $89,000 can file their taxes for free with this service. According to Sandy Valadez, assistant director of Financial Aid, this service is offered to faculty, staff, students and open to the public.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions or questions regarding filing your taxes and sometimes while doing it on your own you kind of get confused so this is a great opportunity and a great service to offer to the community,” Valadez said.
Jaden Perez, a research assistant II at UTHealth mentioned that while filing taxes has never been a stressful task for her, she and her husband use a paying website every year. Although Perez had never heard of “My Free Taxes” before, she mentioned she would definitely check it out as having a website that could help for free would be very helpful.
Chayapuntika Indoug, an Applied Math PhD student, said she heard of this service before through an email “a couple years ago” and has used the service ever since. She said “My Free Taxes” has made filing her taxes an easy thing to do.
This service will be available at the U-Central offices from Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. until March 12 on the Edinburg campus and from Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., until April 2 on the Brownsville campus.
