Tax preparer Shorty sees hope in free service

Americorps volunteer Brian Kahn works at a computer station Thursday while using instructional software to learn how to prepare federal income tax returns for people. (Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent)

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Back in 1997, Gilbert Shorty hadn't been helping prepare people's tax return forms for Ellis Tanner Trading Co. patrons very long before he decided he couldn't take it any more.

It's not that he didn't like the work, helping hard-up families reclaim a bit of their federal taxes. What he didn't like was the way his supervisors were telling him to treat those families.

Shorty wanted to make sure they got back every last penny they were due. But that meant spending a little more time with each family than his supervisors liked. His supervisors, Shorty said, wanted to get as many people through their doors as possible, even if that meant selling them short on their returns.

After two weeks on the job, Shorty decided not to show up any more rather than continue the practice of what he thought was helping to rip those families off, many of them his own Navajo people. He didn't think much of the high interest rates often into the hundreds those families were being charged for the service either.

Now, Shorty is one of several volunteers in Gallup helping low income individuals and families file their federal tax return forms for free.

The outfit making it happen is TAX HELP New Mexico, a non-profit group that last year helped 17,000 New Mexicans receive $14 million in tax returns. When he's not teaching accounting at the Technical Vocational Institute in Albuquerque, Fred Gordon directs the program.

Urged by Sen. Jeff Bingaman to take the show on the road after years operating only out of Albuquerque, Gordon introduced the program to smaller communities across the state including Gallup for the first time last year.

Jessi, one of the VISTA volunteers helping to bring the program back to this corner of the state in 2005, said volunteers last year helped put $124,000 back into the pockets of some 120 families in the Gallup area.

They know there are plenty more unclaimed returns out there both around Gallup and around the state and are hoping to help even more people this year.

Of the 580,000 people in New Mexico who filed federal tax return forms last year, 403,000 of them earned enough to qualify for the program's free services, Gordon said, "so we've only touched the tip of the iceberg."

Gordon is expanding the number of sites statewide from 20 to 44 this year. In Gallup, meanwhile, there will be 25 volunteers working the three sites around town, 10 more than last year. More volunteers means the ability to serve more people, which, they're hoping, means more tax credits.

And it's not just the individual families who benefit from the extra cash, Gordon points out. The more money people have to spend, the more money they put into the local economy.

Why, then, do so many people fail to send off their forms and so many millions of dollars in returns go unclaimed every year?

"The biggest thing is they're afraid," said Gordon, afraid they'll end of owing the government if they file.

"But for people with low income, it's just the opposite," he said. "The funny thing about those non-compliant people is that chances are they're entitled to a tax credit."

Shorty is such a fan of the program because, unlike professional tax preparers, TAX HELP's trained volunteers do it for free, allowing filers to keep that much more of their returns.

Gordon says many professional preparers take advantage of their customers by charging exorbitant interest rates from 70 percent to 700 percent on loans given out on the strength of the customers' returns.

"The trouble with these loans is that you and I wouldn't take out a loan at 700 percent interest," he said.

But with low-income minorities, said Shorty, "because of our naive ways, we don't know a better way."

And he doesn't single out the Ellis Tanner Trading Co. alone, laying the blame on just about everyone else in the business as well.

But that better way, Gordon and his volunteers will insist, has arrived, and it's here in Gallup.