Low-income residents can get tax help this year

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — For the third straight year, the area's low income residents have a place to turn for free help in filling out their tax returns.

From Jan. 18 through April 15, Tax Help New Mexico will be in town ready to fill out tax returns for anyone with an annual household income less than $37,000 regardless the size of the household at no cost.

The local incarnation of a national program overseen by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Tax Help New Mexico started out in Albuquerque before branching out to the state's other communities in 2004.

Since arriving in Gallup that year, the program has grown impressively. In 2004, its all-volunteer team helped put $124,000 back into the pockets of some 120 area families. In 2005, it upped that figure to more than $4 million, according to Heather Sood, a local Tax Help New Mexico volunteer.

It's a fraction of the millions in federal tax returns the group believes go unclaimed by locals every year, but money nonetheless that now returns to the people who earned it and, eventually, gets pumped back into the local economy.

Tax Help representatives believe much of that money goes unclaimed because many of the people who'd be entitled to a return fear they'll end up owing the government money if they file. But with their modest incomes, they say, most of the people who qualify for the program's free help end up being owed money by the government.

This year, Sood said, more than 30 trained volunteers will be on hand at two sites to help those who qualify.

Though that's one less site than Gallup had last year after falling apart in the middle of 2005's tax season, the University of New Mexico-Gallup site won't be reopening in 2006 she doubts it will limit the program's efficiency.