a day in the life

a lot of my posts lately have been mostly not written by me, so here are some thoughts of my own. thoughts about my involvement in the VITA program (volunteer income tax assistance).

Last night, I dreamt that I was yelling at a man whose taxes I was trying to do. He was not cooperating and being ungrateful. This is not unlike many of the people whose taxes I have done over the past few weeks. I yelled something like, "I AM DOING YOUR TAXES FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GIVE ME YOUR W-2S AND SOCIAL SECURITY CARD AND A PLACE TO SIT WHERE I CAN DO THEM." I remember wondering afterwards if I was going to get fired and thinking about my old manager from the Rustic Kitchen who got fired for her outlook which was, don't let the customer push you around. This is your turf that they are stepping onto. I really appreciated that outlook. That's not how VITA works, at least not at Pathways. It's like, sure, show up an hour late for your appointment and we'll stay late and finish up your taxes! We'll wait for you to go home and pick up the forms we told you to bring. We will bend over backwards to do your income tax return, no matter how sassy you are to us. At least that's the impression I get about how we are supposed to operate. 

TC ended up calming the man down and doing his return, which is probably just what would happen in real life, were I to snap some day.

Last night I was at a library in Delaware County until 10pm filing tax returns. I did a return for a man who reeked of alcohol and ultimately wouldn't let me electronically file it because he was going to go elsewhere and try to file differently to see if he could get more money. He wouldn't have any of my reasoning.

Today I drove for a long time to the northest westest part of Philly to a daycare for tax preparation. With me, I had one laptop owned by the IRS, one laptop owned by Pathways PA, one printer, four different books on VITA, flyers, folders, paper, various tax forms and a stapler. I am a walking office. I drove through some pretty awful areas, all dilapidated buildings but really nice colorful murals. It seems strange, "what this poor neighborhood needs is some murals."  One mural had Will Smith's face in it.  You could tell the neighborhood used to be really rich with beautiful Victorian houses and ornate churches and cool old signs but everything was just falling apart.  I am not joking when I say one of the very few buildings that was in perfect shape was a wine & spirits store.  Also a Dollar General and a castle-y Roman Catholic Church with huge (like 20 foot tall) obelisk grave markers that I would guess cost more than their neighbors' rent for a few months.  

The actual daycare was in a slightly nicer neighborhood than the one I just described, though one worker told us that three of her friends had recently been robbed at gunpoint less than a block away.  On three separate occasions.  All of the children were black and all of the teachers minus one.  When I do taxes at daycares, I really just want to sit on the floor and play with the kids rather than walk through to the office where no fun is being had.  

We send scheduler sheets to the daycares and other sites that they are supposed to fax to us within two days of their appointment date.  There are several problems with this.  

1.  They often simply do not fax it until we call them the day before

2.  Once they do send it, they still allow people to sign up and change appointments around

3.  During the very busy month of February, we seldom even get to go to the office to retrieve the sheets.  I've been carrying around these computers since Monday afternoon and I will have them until probably Friday.

So the whole appointment thing is usually a bust.  Many taxes take more or less than the allotted time (30 minutes), particularly depending on how complicated they are (dependents, number of W-2s, interest and dividends are the main factors) and on who is preparing them.  Not to brag, but I've been averaging at about 15 minutes per return.  Ahem, go on Greg, tell me you average at 12.  But anyway, there's a lot of waiting around because people haven't shown up and leaving late and blah blah blah.  Usually I don't mind because some days I get to work fewer than 8 hours, depending.  Tomorrow, unless the snow interferes, I will go to two different sites back-to-back and probably work the full eight.  

We often end up sitting in chairs built for preschoolers at desks built for preschoolers with preschoolers running around and hanging of their teacher and/or mother when I am trying to find out whether or not she wants to donate $3 to the presidential election fund.  Funny to talk about, uncomfortable to live.  You can only give the "how charming" smile for so long before it stops feeling genuine.  At this point, though, unless I am asked a question or there is some glitch in the system, it is all robotic motions of data entry and I don't need to think very hard.  I am a tax machine.  Even in my dreams, apparently.

Then there's the actual dealing with clients.  They are people who are wary of authority and money-related authorities especially.  It's amazing the authority you gain in people's eyes when you are typing on a laptop labeled IRS.  I am hardly any sort of authority, but I sort of appear to be one, and at times, an enemy because I am the bearer of what can be bad news.  The tax law.  Dun dun dun.  Clients definitely come in with their own agendas that they think will get them the most money.  I can tell when they are lying about various issues and I have to tell them that the IRS knows what's up.  No, you probably won't get away with two people filing head of household at the same address.  I think you are lying about having lived away from your spouse for the past six months.  People get piisssed when they think I am telling them that they can't have money that they think is rightfully theirs.  It's totally good when people ask me to explain why they got so little Earned Income Tax Credit (because your earned income was so little), in the same way it is good when they read the contracts I make them sign.  I just sort of wish they did it in a less confrontational way.  But whatever, people jump on the defense when they think you are going to rip them off.  I promise, I am here to help.  I could be getting paid more to work at McDonald's, I am clearly here to help.  But generally clients seem to think I am an accounting major or some sort of tax lawyer.  Except today, a particularly curious woman asked me if this was the first tax return I had ever prepared.  No, ma'am, it's the twelfth.  She probably spotted my chipping green nail polish.  I certainly don't look like a tax expert; Matt said two days ago that I look like a kid, so I put on a cable-knit sweater.  I guess I don't really blame her.

It always shocks me when I do someone's taxes, usually a girl daycare worker, and they were born in '88 or '89 or, the worst, 1990.  I was born in 1986.  These babies almost always have dependents.  Babies.  One or two, born as long ago as 2004.  They are usually really pumped about their kids though, excited to talk about them.  That part is nice.  They are also almost always very young-seeming.  Very naive, the less mature kids I graduated high school with.  The ones who played with my little ponies in 7th grade and the rest of us thought were weird.  And then they went through some crazy sexual awakening, usually brought on by some creep-o senior when we were in the 8th grade.  And then they grow up, really fast, zip right past the rest of us.  But only in a few, small huge ways.  I am obviously thinking of specific examples. 

All this doubt from the clientel isn't helped by the fact that I am white.  I feel uncomfortable when I go into a tax site and the only white people in the room are me and the other tax preparer.  We've come to save you!  I look like some silly naive girl who's here in north Philly to save all the poor people.  Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit, and that is what I am.  I was complaining to someone that I am poor too, I am stressed out about money and foodstamps and how to pay the gas bill.  He pointed out that I have 'one hell of a safety net.'  He is right.  I try not to remember that fact, and I doubt it will come to asking anyone for help, but I can't help but know it's there, and knowing it's there is probably worth more than using it.

All that said, I really do like preparing taxes.  It's fun to learn about anything, really, and to be able to answer questions confidently is a nice feeling.  I like the data entry, I like watching the refund amount accumulate, I like the look on someone's face when they are getting more than they expected.  Not everyone is angry at me or ungrateful.  Plenty of people thank us profusely and tell us horror stories of fees at Liberty Tax or H & R Block and make us feel like what we are doing is worthwhile.  At the end of the tax season, we will have satisfying numbers, but the faces are what I will remember.  One lady last Friday called us a blessing from God and slapped the table and yelled something along the lines of, "Sweet Jesus!"  It's nice to be called a blessing, it doesn't often happen.