Tax-time can be stressful/confusing for the best of us, and it’s good to have someone to turn to when a question arises about the online lodgement process.
The Australian Tax Office runs a volunteer “helper” scheme that taxpayers can access for assistance with the online tax return process.
Katrina Watt at SuniTAFE next door to our campus is interested in recruiting La Trobe students to become volunteer tax helpers.
Katrina says the program is a good way for volunteers to “give back to the community, meet new people, improve communication skills and, of course, get work experience that looks great in the resume”.
Students require no previous experience, nor do they need to be tax experts, Katrina says.
The training is just six modules on different topics about the tax process, and each module contains between 10 and 12 questions. All the information to answer the questions is available on the ATO website.
Volunteers in the Sunraysia area would lend a hand at any of three Tax Help Centres: at SuniTAFE, Mildura Rural City Council and the Sunraysia Mallee Ethnic Communities Council.
The help is available to those earning less than $60,000 in the last financial year, so it tends to be salary and wage earners, as well as pensioners, who access the service.
Interested? Be quick – you’ve only got a short window of time in which to do the training.
Contact Katrina at kwatt@sunitafe.edu.au. In the meantime, learn more about the scheme at the ATO website.