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 tax clinic appointment per tax season, and 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 will not reserve space at all of our in-person clinics for walk-ins. Walk-ins will be allowed in to the clinic as space permits on a first-come, first-served basis. If our appointment schedule is full, we encourage you to come as a walk-in to our in-person clinics. You must still be a member to walk-in. If you are not a member you will not have access to the tax software and tools you need to prepare your return. We do not support walk-ins for remote clinics or office hours.

• 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 in-person clinics your appointment space will be given to any walk-in members who are waiting. For remote events we are unable to accommodate walk-in clients, and so this appointment time is wasted. If you do not show for a tax clinic appointment (in person or remote) you will not be allowed to make another tax clinic appointment, but you can attend future office hours events, or attend another in-person clinic as a walk-in. 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 clinics and office hours 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.

• In-person clinics will be held at multiple schools. The location is provided when you book your appointment. It is your responsibility to get to your tax clinic appointment.

• 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 clinic appointment. You only get one appointment, so make sure you have all of the information you need for your return before you arrive. To get the most out of your appointment, you should get as far as you can in the tax return process before the clinic. If you wait to start your return until your appointment time you may not finish before the session is over, or you may find you don’t have the information you need to prepare your return and cannot get it in time.

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