TAXES: A volunteer salute

This year, 100 IRS certified Tax Aide volunteers provided FREE income tax assistance to 6,100 taxpayers in Kootenai and Shoshone counties between Feb. 1 and April 15.

We would like to thank the Athol Community Center, Rathdrum Senior Center, Post Falls Senior Center, Lake City Center, Sunnyside Elementary School in Kellogg and Silver Lake Mall for hosting tax assistance sites. Without the donated sites, the tax assistance program would not be possible. Frontier Communications provided the phone and internet connection for more than 5,300 e-filed returns. Lake City Center provided needed utilities at Silver Lake Mall. Allegra Print provided posters for advertising. Our volunteers contributed more than 13,000 hours of their time during training and tax assistance.

A special thanks goes out to Terry Grutta for his 20 years of volunteer service to the Tax Aide program.

Each year Tax Aide provides FREE tax assistance to 2.9 million low to moderate income and elderly taxpayers around the country. For the tax year 2015 just completed, returns prepared by Tax Aide locally brought to Kootenai and Shoshone County taxpayers more than $3.66 million in Federal refunds plus refunds from Idaho, including the Idaho grocery credit.

Tax Aide is sponsored by the AARP Foundation in cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service.

THANK YOU to our sponsors and volunteers.

WARREN FISHER

Volunteer

District Coordinator