You can help! No tax experience necessary!
We need volunteers on-site at Salt & Light in Urbana to greet clients and ensure taxpayers have the correct documents and information needed for accurate tax filings. Volunteers will not complete tax returns. Volunteers will coach college students with customer relations and information gathering skills.
Our VITA program is truly a win-win situation. Gies College of Business accounting students gain valuable hands-on experience and taxpayers receive much needed help at no-cost.
What’s involved for volunteers?
Training on the VITA process (intake and returning completed tax returns to clients) will be provided. Approximately, 4 hours of training will be required before volunteering. Volunteer shifts will be 2.5 hours with the option to do more than one shift per week. Volunteers are needed from January through April 2026.
In 2025, 22 community members completed training and volunteered at the VITA site. Overall, 524 volunteer hours were logged for this tax season. Volunteers working cooperatively with students and Gies Business faculty resulted in more than 600 tax returns completed and filed for free. Overall, volunteers reported that the VITA site is a wonderful, positive volunteer experience.
In addition, Gies Business accounting students developed communication and tax preparation skills by meeting with clients and completing tax returns, under the careful supervision of Gies College of Business faculty. Gies Business’ undergraduate accounting program is ranked #1 in the nation and the graduate accounting program is ranked #3 by US News & World Report.
If you’re interested in learning more about volunteering, please complete and submit the Volunteer Interest Form. Then, you will be contacted by email with more information including training dates. Also, you may contact Kathy Sweedler, VITA Site Coordinator, at VITA@business.illinois.edu with questions.