By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Volunteer tax preparers throughout the state are ready to provide low- and middle-income families with free assistance filing their tax returns. In Farmington, more than 20 university students are available Thursday evenings and Saturdays. Other volunteers are poised to help elsewhere.

The VITA program – volunteer income tax assistance – brings certified volunteers together with people who need help preparing their income tax returns. Started in 1970, the program, along with Tax Counseling for the Elderly, a similar program geared towards seniors’ tax filing needs, served 1,606,739 people nationwide with the help of nearly 80,000 volunteers, according to IRS statistics.

Free tax help is available throughout Maine through the VITA program and through AARP, which provides free individual assistance with basic tax forms at sites in Poland Spring, Rumford and Jay.

Lewiston and Auburn have offered free tax-return preparation for two years, said Lewiston Mayor Lionel Guay. Tax experts prepared 336 tax returns last year and returned $262,416 in earned income benefits to local families.

This is the third year for the Farmington program, which has a goal of processing at least 135 returns this year, said Jim Trundy of Western Maine Community Action. Last year, 90 returns yielded total refunds of $148,081, including almost $84,000 in earned income tax credits.

More than 20 students from the University of Maine Farmington participated in an eight-hour certification training on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, said Nancy Lord, an Internal Revenue Service senior technical specialist, who taught the course.

“I was impressed that they showed up on a day off,” she said of the students who, she added, immediately took to the tax preparation software.”They’re so enthusiastic and so into computers.”

The program in Farmington was the result of a collaboration between Casey Family Services; Western Maine Community Action; Women, Work and Community; and several other community organizations and educational agencies.

Those seeking assistance through the program in Farmington must meet income criteria that makes them eligible to receive the earned income tax credit. Tax filers must have some form of earned income for the year and an annual income less than:

• $11,490 single or $12,490 married with no children.

• $30,338 single; $31,338 married with one child.

• $34,458 single; $35,458 married with more than one child.

According to Tali Gill-Austern, a UMF business major and campus coordinator for VITA, the program is designed to find savings that taxpayers may miss completing the forms themselves. They will also save $50 to $75 they might otherwise spend for a tax preparer, he noted.

Certified preparers in Farmington, who started working Jan. 20, have helped about 25 people already, said Gill-Austern. Help is available by appointment from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.

Professor Frank Engert of the university thought it was a great idea when he heard the proposal a few years ago.

“Part of the motivation for the program is that a lot of low-income families don’t take advantage of the earned income credit,” he said. “It’s a win-win for everybody. Students benefit from the experience, it benefits the family and it’s good publicity for UMF and the (sponsoring) organizations,” he said.

Farmington’s site has electronic filing capabilities, as many others do. For those not eligible for the VITA program, free tax information and filing is available on the IRS Web site at www.irs.gov.