MEDA Spring 2012

About Me:

Hello everyone! My name is Xu Chen, at school my professors and friends usually call me Nansie. I am a sophomore double major in Finance and Accounting at the University of San Francisco. I was born and lived in Guangzhou, China for 13 years, my parents and I moved to the United Stated in 2004, and my family is settled in Hayward, a city in the Bay Area. This is my first year participating in the Public Service Internship Program(PSIP), and this semester I will be starting my internship at the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA). I am very excited and looking forward working at MEDA, my goal is to contribute my best efforts to the organization, ultimately to create a positive impact to our community.

Introduction to the blog:

Welcome to the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) section. I am currently interning as a tax preparer in the Free Tax Preparation Program at MEDA. I will introduce the background information about MEDA and the proceduce of becoming a certified tax preparer, and I will share my personal working experiences from this internship in MEDA. Thank you!

About Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA)

MEDA is a community-based, local economic development corporation located in the Mission District of San Francisco. For over 38 years MEDA has worked to improve economic and social conditions in the neighborhood by stimulating investment, enhancing the business environment, and creating jobs for area residents. MEDA is committed to maintaining the cultural identity and resources of the Mission District.

Website: http://medasf.org/english/

Mission Statement

The mission of MEDA is to achieve economic justice for San Francisco’s low- to moderate-income Latino families through asset development.  Asset Development is the process of encouraging and supporting individuals and families to develop, accumulate and manage personal, social and material (especially financial) assets.

Vision Statement

In the long-term, we envision generations of Latino families that are a part of vibrant, diverse, proud and forward-thinking communities in which residents own their homes and businesses, and are actively engaged in the civic life of their neighborhoods and the institutions that affect their lives. We see these families as having sufficient assets to provide them and future generations with the opportunity to call San Francisco their permanent home.

Core Values

In working to achieve our mission, MEDA has identified several core values that we strive to reflect in all our activities. Our core values are:

• Equity and fairness. We value equity and fairness in how we work together, in our relations with our constituencies and in the society we seek to help create.
• Relevance. We value work that addresses the actual needs of our constituencies, ensuring that our services add real value and are provided in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.
• A healthy workplace. We value sound conditions for all staff, Board and others who participate in our place of work. We strive to make sure that their experience is positive, fair, sustainable and fulfilling.
• Leadership. We value leadership, the quality of influencing others – through beliefs, ethics, character, vision, commitment, knowledge, wisdom, skills, innovation and initiative – to help achieve economic justice for our constituencies. Leadership can be exercised by everyone, regardless of their position and authority. MEDA seeks to foster leadership within our constituencies. We also aim to foster leadership among our staff, Board, and supporters, and to exercise leadership in the communities in which we work.
• Mission District. We value the Mission District. The Mission has been our home and base of operations for many years. Its people, and geographic, social and political dynamics, have strongly shaped who we are and what we do. While our focus is now broader, we actively recognize the importance of the Mission.

Website: http://medasf.org/english/about/

Free Tax Preparation Program

MEDA’s VITA Site Free Tax Preparation Program serves low-income families in San Francisco by providing:

• Free tax return preparation year round
• Benefits screening & assessment for other related services
• Self employed tax education

Plaza Adelante, MEDA’s home, serves as the program’s headquarters and largest site. MEDA coordinates four additional tax sites at SF Human Services Agency offices throughout San Francisco’s low-income neighborhoods.

Our Free Tax Preparation Program is staffed through dedicated volunteers from banks, partner organizations, and the community.

MEDA also offers free assistance to low income and Spanish speaking students for filling the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) and  ITIN* application services.

My supervisors are Dairo Romero, he is the Director of Programs; and for the VITA Site Tax Program, Graciela Reyna, she is the Tax Program Lead. In the Free Tax Preparation Program, I am also working with other volunteers to help the clients prepare their tax returns.

Becoming a Certified Tax Preparer  

In order to become a legal tax preparer under VITA Site Tax Program, the first step is to be certified. The Free Tax Preparation Program is part of a program name Volunteer Income Tax (VITA).   Every year everyone is required to take a Certification in order to be able to volunteer preparing taxes.  Firstly, you have to take the online training at www.irs.gov/app/vita. Then create your own account and take the test. Start with the Volunteer Standard of Conduct Test, this test is important for the voluteer to take because everyone volunteer must follow the voluteer standard of conduct during the tax preparation; if any voluteer violates the conduct, the consequence is you will be removed from all VITA/TCE programs and desigration on the IRS volunteer registry to bar future work. Secondly, you will take the Basic level certification test and after that it is possible take the intermediate level. Additionally, you can use a Practice Lab in order to complete returns from your test.

My Tasks

The tax return filing service in MEDA officially started on January 21, 2012, and my first day was started on January 23, 2012. The main tasks for tax preparers including me are to provide tax payers a free tax preparation of Federal and CA state returns for 2011, and to assistance claiming working families credit.  For example, the service begins with welcome clients and inform them about services; and then, I must review page 1 and 2  of intake form by interviewing the client and clarify the unsure responses on the IRS form. When the form is completed, I begin the tax return by entering the information in Taxwise. During the filing, I need to enter cliens’ information accurately, clerify questions when necessary. For the last stage of the tax return filing, I need to ask my supervisor to do a quality review the tax return, it is important to have the supervisor double check the return in case if error occurs. Lastly, I will print the copy of tax return to the clients, make sure to create an e-file and update status as ready to send to the IRS.

My Experiences

First of all, I am very honored to be a part  of the Free Tax Preparation Program in MEDA. It is a great and valuable working experience of being a tax preparer, because I am able to help tax payers who were low income families to file their 2011 tax returns. Since MEDA’s mission statement is “To achieve economic justice for San Francisco’s low-to-moderate-income Latino families through asset development,” I have the duty to prepare accurate tax returns to get all the credits and refunds that the clients’ deserve. So far, we only two weeks left for the tax season, and we are at 87% of our goal of 3,000 tax returns and close to the 4 million goal of refunds back to the community. What a fantastic result! Through helping the low-income tax payers, I have realized their hardship and struggle to support families with the little paid, some of them even have to work multiple jobs. In fact, I begin to learn to be thankful for what I have right now, and inspired to a better person contributing more to the community. Although I was able to provide accurate tax preparation to my clients, but since almost all of the clients were Spanish speakers, I was having a hard time to communicate with them. Luckily, there are many Spanish speaker volunteers helped me to translate.