ST. PHILIP’S COLLEGE INCOME TAX SITE PROCESSES RECORD $3.6 MILLION IN REFUNDS FOR LOW-INCOME CLIENTS

Record 2,141 taxpayers served; college recruiting 40 tax preparers for 2010 now

SAN ANTONIO (May 8, 2009) --- St. Philip’s College volunteers processed a college record $3.6 million in refunds for a record 2,141 low- to moderate-income clients from the college’s 2009 federal income tax preparation service site.

Volunteer income tax assistance sites offer free tax help to persons earning $45,000-or-less with advice and tax return preparation. St. Philip’s College provides space, Internal Revenue Service-certified volunteer personnel and equipment for its tax center. The IRS supports the center at the college with tax software, said site leader and college Business faculty member Kenneth Bankston.

“We served 400 more clients than normal, due to the economy,” Bankston said. “I could tell more people appreciated everything our team did for them this year, especially our older clients,” said Bankston.

Bankston is actively recruiting 40 volunteer tax preparers for the 2010 season now. To volunteer call Bankston today at (210) 486-2122.

St. Philip’s College volunteers prepared tax returns for 2,141 local clients en route to ensuring the clients $1.3 million in Earned Income Credit and $47.6 million in Adjusted Gross Income for those clients in 2009.

The college’s tax site has been admired by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS invited Bankston to the first IRS Symposium for Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Aug. 2008 in New Orleans, so that Bankston could share best practices with other colleges in free tax preparation practices for low-income communities. St. Philip’s College was asked to participate because it’s been a successful tax preparation site for 15 years, averaging 1,700 income tax returns for students and community members annually.

While student interns from the college’s Accounting and the Business Management program served as preparers at the college’s tax site, other college personnel partnered for the 2009 tax season with Lackland Air Force Base to train Lackland’s 39-member 2009 volunteer income tax preparation team. The college rapidly supported the military’s requirement with access to high-performance computer labs and information technology support from the St. Philip’s College Lackland Extended Services site. St. Philip’s College is the leading provider of education among Alamo Colleges at Lackland. Photo 1 | Photo 2 | Photo 3 (Archival images by Dianne Moffett)

Websites/Resources related to this story include:

1)Alamo Colleges-St. Philip’s College

About St. Philip’s: Bishop James Steptoe Johnston of the St. Philip’s Episcopal Church of the West Texas Diocese founded Alamo Colleges—St. Philip’s College in 1898. Today, Alamo Colleges—St. Philip’s College is a multi-campus institution of the Alamo Colleges and serves a semester enrollment of nearly 10,000 credit and more than 6,000 continuing education students. Alamo Colleges—St. Philip’s is a Historically Black College and Hispanic Serving Institution and is the only college in the nation that carries this dual designation. As “A Point of Pride in the Community,” Alamo Colleges—St. Philip’s College is among the oldest and most diverse community colleges in the United States.