Appointment Policies and Information:

You are not required to make an appointment. If you complete your return and you are satisfied with it, you may proceed with filing your return.

You can edit your information in the tax software up to the point where you file your return (send it to the IRS). This means you can start your return with no risk of doing anything wrong. We can review your completed (but not submitted) return to make sure it is right, and help you fix any issues before you send it to the IRS. BUT, once you click on that “submit” button and efile your return, it has been filed and you can no longer make changes.

Language Options: Half of our volunteers speak multiple languages. We expect to have volunteers that speak Chinese (Mandarin) at all of our events. In addition, we have volunteers that speak a total of 17 other languages. Those languages are: Spanish, Chinese (Cantonese), Korean, Vietnamese, French, Japanese, Hindi, Russian, Nepali, Plaudietsch, Norwegian, Kannada, Sinhala, Chichewa, Nyanja, German, Telugu, Khmer, Shona, and Amharic. If you would like to attend an event with a volunteer that speaks one of these languages, please email us at the address above. We will let you know the events that a volunteer who speaks that language is scheduled for.

Please carefully read the following appointment policies carefully:

• Due to high demand, we limit members to ONE office hours appointment per day. You can book multiple office hours appointments, as long as they are on different days.

• Your appointment information must match your member information. If you book duplicate appointments or use an alternate email, at a minimum we will delete all but one of them, and we reserve the right to delete all appointments and/or ban you from making further appointments.

• Book your appointment early! We have limited volunteer resources, which means limited spots for assistance at our tax events.

• We do not support walk-ins for office hours. You must have an appointment.

• If you are unable to attend your appointment, you must cancel at least 4 hours prior to the appointment start time. If you do not cancel you will be marked as a no-show. For remote events we are unable to accommodate walk-in clients, and so this appointment time is wasted. If you do not show for multiple appointments then you will be banned from making any further appointments for the remainder of the tax season.

• Remote events will be held via zoom, and a link to the clinic will be emailed approximately 2 hours prior to the clinic start. You must make sure your Zoom name matches the name of your member account. You will not be let into the Zoom call if they do not match.

• Our appointments are intended as an opportunity for you to ask questions about preparing your return when you run into issues using our tutorials and other materials. You must bring your computer and supporting materials to any clinics so that you can work on your return. Our volunteers will not help clients through the software step-by-step. They can help you enter information if you get stuck, review your return when it is completed, and answer other general tax questions you might have.

• Although we can answer almost all questions during a tax event, occasionally we will get more complex questions that we cannot answer immediately. It is more important to provide you a correct answer than to provide you a quick answer. If our volunteers at a clinic are not certain of how to correctly answer you, they will refer you to our email support. Our most experienced tax experts provide this support, and they have additional external resources they will involve if needed, such as the IRS, state Departments of Revenue, and local Low Income Tax Clinics (free legal assistance with tax controversies).

• We would STRONGLY encourage you to start your return using our tutorials, guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting resources before your appointment. An office hours appointment is for answering questions and reviewing your return. If you haven’t started working on your return then you won’t have anything to ask, or any forms for us to review.

• We cannot provide any guidance on out of scope income or situations.