Nashvillians earning less than 37-thousand dollars a year are now eligible for free tax preparation.
The Nashville Wealth Building Alliance, a coalition of local agencies and non-profits, offer the service at 12 sites around the city.
Carmen Santiago filed for her return using the free service last night at the Woodbine Community Center. Santiago says she saved 300-dollars by not using her usual tax preparation service.
“I’m a single mother, and by being that you need money to be able to continue raising your children. So the sooner I do it, the sooner the money comes in, and the sooner I can do the things I need to do.”
Woodbine Community Organization director Cathie Dodd says the service helps low-income citizens avoid the appeal of “rapid refunds” and encourages the use of the earned income tax credit. Participants also can establish a free savings account from U-S Bank for directly depositing their tax return.
“We had two people come in last night who heard that and wanted to open checking and savings accounts…Now they have an asset and a relationship with a lending institution. So now we are past another thing which is the check cashing and the high rate lending companies.”
Dodd says 10-percent of the 5-thousand Nashvillians who used the program last year filed with the IRS for the first time. Many of those were recent immigrants to the United States.
For more information on the materials needed for filing and directions to the filing sites, call 2-1-1. Tax help is available in Spanish.
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