KYCC’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program held its annual tax preparation service—from January to April of this year—for thousands of low-income families living throughout Los Angeles. This season, we brought $16 million in refunds to a record of over 12,000 taxpayers.
Through funding from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the City and County of Los Angeles, the VITA program oversaw all aspects of tax preparation at over 100 free workshops. Along with the KYCC free tax prep site, the four other locations involved in this year’s VITA efforts were Children’s Bureau at Magnolia Place, 1736 Family Crisis Center, West LA Community College and South Bay One-Stop Business Center. KYCC directly operates five VITA sites while providing technical assistance and training to 20 VITA programs across the City and County of Los Angeles.
This was KYCC’s second year overseeing the Free Tax Prep Los Angeles campaign: a public awareness initiative to promote free tax services and the Earned Income Tax Credit. FTPLA is a collaborative with the City and County of Los Angeles, United Way of Greater Los Angeles, and Citibank.
The tax filing deadline, April 17th, was celebrated with an all-day tax marathon. On that day alone, 263 tax filers were assisted and $243,000 was claimed in tax credits.
“This year, we celebrated our 11th year of VITA services,” said Audrey Casillas, KYCC Community Economic Development Services Coordinator. “We would like to thank our many collaborative partners and more than 200 volunteers.”
