Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)
The Coaliton is working on offiering free income tax preparation assistance in the Clatskanie/Westport area. This service will help insure that all taxpayers who are eligable for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Addition Child Tax Credit will recieve those additional funds. Every year millions of dollars of tax refunds go unclaimed and can total as much as $6000 per family. The coaliion wants to insure that every dollar due to Clatskanie/Westport residents be returned to our community. We believ this is a great way to bring resources back to the community.
Individual Development Accounts (IDA)
An opportunity to have every dollar put in a qualified savings account matched 2 to 1. This savings program matched with the VITA program can bring in about $15,000 to qualified families. Funds in the IDA program can only be used to start a small business, buy a home or go to college. This is a program that builds on the hard work and drive to succeed of local workers and brings results in the way of higher percentage of home owners, more local opportunities for employment, post secondary opportunities and the opportunity to support more local businesses.
These programs are in the development phase, VITA was launched on February 4, 2009 and IDA is still in the planning phase.