Thank You Everyone - 2015
On this April 15th tax filing day, I wanted to reach out to all of you to thank you for all of your help and support for the St. Francis of Assisi Tax Assistance Program. You are all to be commended for your efforts this year!
As a result of your efforts, we were able to meet with 98 clients and over $115,000 in net tax refunds and credits will be returned to those who desperately need them in our community! This is an amazing accomplishment for the 9 short days that we ran the program. As always, I am humbled that you are all so willing to volunteer your time in this effort! With these refunds, our clients will be able to pay rent and other bills, buy groceries, or save for the future. Without your efforts, many of these clients would either have to pay someone to complete their returns or perhaps choose not to file and take advantage of the credits that are available to them. You treated everyone with grace and dignity and everyone left our site thankful for your assistance. I can't tell you the number of times I was thanked by our clients for all of your efforts!
Our program had the extra challenge of dealing with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) this year and you all met that challenge! I wasn't sure what to expect with this significant change in the tax law, but you all were able to work through it. Many times, we had to counsel our clients who were confused about the ACA and its impact on their tax returns or who were perhaps placed in an insurance plan that was too expensive for them. Your efforts in this are invaluable given the complexity of the ACA and the general confusion that continues to surround what is perhaps the most significant legislation in years.
We were also were surprised with a visit from the IRS, who will periodically stop in to review a site to make sure that the program's rules are being adhered to. I am pleased to let you know that we received a score of 90% for our site. The items that we were marked down for were not significant and did not impact the level of service that we are able to provide so thank you for helping to make this possible.
This year we welcomed Cynthia, Gary and Julie to our team. You all were incredible! I hope you enjoyed your time in the program and will consider coming back in the future.
We also were blessed to have Colette, John, Deisy and Lynn back for another year. I can't tell you how easy you make it to run the program since you are experienced and know what to expect. We also welcomed Michelle, who had previously volunteered in our program. Thank you so much to all of you for believing in the program enough to keep returning year after year!
Of course, I cannot manage this program without Scott's and Jim's help. Thank you so much for making sure everything runs smoothly from the appointment bookings to the computers! Please also pass along my thanks to the office staff who's offices we use, those who book the appointments and the Saturday volunteers who are the first to greet our clients and make sure they fill out the required questionnaire.
People often ask me why I continue to be involved in this program. It's because of all of you and the people that we help. You truly inspire me to continue to coordinate this program. I could not do any of this without all of you.
Thank you again so much for giving of your time and talent and for all that you do. I hope to see all of you soon!
Have a great year!
Julie M. Soyer
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