VITA Tax Refund Help

The volunteers who help low income people fill out their tax returns at Springfield Partners for Community Action are busy early this year, seeing a rush of taxpayer’s weeks before the April 15 deadline.

"With this economy, people need the money now," Martin D. O'Connor, tax advocate and head of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance or VITA program said. "They have bills to pay now and they can't afford to wait. They need their money now."

Springfield Partners' VITA program expects to help 3,500 to 4,000 low income Springfield residents fill out tax returns this year. The VITA program is open to taxpayers who earned $49,000 or less in 2009.

The Internal Revenue Service also estimates that more taxpayers will qualify for the earned income tax credit this tax season after suffering unemployment and cutbacks in pay and hours during 2009.

The federal government also changed the tax credit this year allowing for an enhanced credit for people with three or more children. The benefit used to stop growing after the second child.

The amount of the refund varies according to a person's income and number of dependent children. For example, a single person with no dependent children would have to earn no more than $13,440 a year to qualify. But a parent of three or more children can qualify with an income of $43,279 or $48,279 for two parents married and filing jointly, according to the IRS.

The maximum tax credit ranges from just $457 for someone with no dependent children to $5,657 for someone with three or more qualifying children. Last year, 24 million people received $50 million in benefits. The average refund was $2,000.