Pitt Business Student Volunteers Provide Tax Preparation Aid


A person uses a laptop

Fifteen student volunteers from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and the College of Business Administration doubled the impact of Pitt’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program in partnership with the Carnegie Library in Oakland this season.

Despite the mandate to close the library site due to COVID-19, the project doubled its returns from its pilot season in 2019. During six weeks of operations in 2020, student volunteers completed 146 tax returns with a total of $206,390 in refunds and a total of $68,967 in earned income credit.

The program, which provides free tax help to people with low-to-medium incomes, the elderly, people with disabilities and those with limited English fluency, supports the Pittsburgh community while providing experience-based learning for Pitt Business students.

Volunteering this year were: James Campbell, Jie Chu, Justin Coughenour, Joshua Gailey, Weichun Hsieh, Han Luo, Muxiao Niu, Rebecca Power, Taylor Stein, Damon Singleton, Connor Taljan, Xingchen Yao, Quan Yang, Anqi Zang and Wenzhao Zhang.

The students completed over 24 hours of training and passed five IRS examinations to qualify as volunteers.

The Pitt VITA program is funded through the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership in Pitt Business. Jocelyn Carlin, clinical assistant professor of business administration, is its faculty advisor.