1 BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 2 450 N STREET 3 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 4 5 6 7 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT 8 SPECIAL PRESENTATION 9 REPORT ON VOLUNTEER TAX ASSISTANCE 10 (VITA) PROGRAM PARTICIPATION BY 11 BOE EMPLOYEES 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Reported by: Juli Price Jackson 22 No. CSR 5214 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 1 P R E S E N T 2 For the Board Jerome E. Horton of Equalization: Chairman 3 4 Sen. George Runner (Ret.) Vice-Chairman 5 6 Fiona Ma, CPA Member 7 8 Diane L. Harkey Member 9 10 Yvette Stowers Appearing for Betty T. 11 Yee, State Controller (per Government Code 12 Section 7.9) 13 Joann Richmond 14 Chief, Board Proceedings Division 15 16 Cynthia Bridges Executive Director 17 18 ---oOo--- 19 For the Board: William Hain Administrator 20 Customer Service Center Outreach Services 21 Division 22 23 ---o0o--- 24 25 26 27 28 2 1 450 N STREET 2 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 3 JULY 28, 2015 4 ---oOo--- 5 MR. HORTON: Ms. Richmond, what's our next 6 matter? 7 MS. RICHMOND: Our next matter are special 8 presentations. 9 We have -- 10 MR. HORTON: Let's hold that over. I 11 believe we are -- unless the guests are present? 12 MS. RICHMOND: This is for the VITA 13 program. 14 MR. HORTON: Okay. Looks like they're 15 ready. 16 All right. 17 MS. RICHMOND: So, we have a special 18 presentation. It's a report on the Volunteer Income 19 Tax Assistance Program Participation by BOE 20 Employees. 21 MR. HAIN: Good morning. 22 MR. HORTON: Good morning. 23 MR. HAIN: I'm William Hain. I'm the 24 Administrator over our Customer Service Center and 25 our Outreach Services Division. 26 The purpose of this presentation is to 27 provide the Board with a brief update on the BOE 28 efforts made to assist and promote the VITA program. 3 1 I have a little power point that's 2 attached, although I don't see it up on the screen 3 as of yet. 4 There we go, I think. 5 Well, as that goes up, I'll just kind of 6 describe what VITA is. VITA is a program that 7 offers free income tax help to people who made 8 $53,000 or less, have disabilities or are elderly or 9 have limited English-speaking skills. 10 IRS-certified volunteers provide free basic 11 income tax return preparation with electronic filing 12 to qualified individuals. 13 The BOE has supported VITA for the last six 14 years as a partner organization with them. And, 15 actually, the history with VITA goes back about 10 16 to 12 years within the Third District. Mr. Chiang, 17 when he was a Member of the Board had pioneered some 18 of the early events. All Members of the Board in 19 the past six years have supported it in different 20 manners. 21 BOE employees all volunteer -- who 22 participate volunteer. They get trained by the IRS 23 to assist people with the returns. And the BOE VITA 24 program has hosted over 50 events in the last six 25 years. 26 This year we targeted specific demographics 27 and we partnered with some universities, some 28 schools, nonprofit organizations, and also the 4 1 Franchise Tax Board and IRS. 2 We held eight VITA Mega Days. And what 3 they were were all day sessions at local colleges 4 where -- where, in addition to the VITA help, they 5 had a family -- Family Services there offering local 6 nonprofits and community service organizations 7 different types of benefits for people and programs 8 to help out those in need. 9 We also, within the four district offices 10 in the Third District, had a -- had a day a week 11 where they could schedule appointments. And FTB 12 volunteers came in and did their returns. 13 Here were the results from -- here's some 14 of the different fliers and stuff we had sent out 15 from each of the Members in welcoming people. 16 But this year we had 91 BOE employees who 17 volunteered to help do the returns. The volunteers 18 assisted at all the BOE-hosted events. We received 19 tons of positive feedback, especially the Executive 20 Director of the Franchise Tax Board, Selvi 21 Stanislaus, witnessed a patron saying, "You're an 22 angel," get up and hugged the volunteer who had 23 helped her because they had gotten a return and 24 their earned income tax credit for the first time 25 ever. And, so, it was really kind of a good 26 community feedback. 27 All in all for the 2015 tax season at the 28 BOE VITA events we -- at the Mega Days we had about 5 1 800 constituents, and we returned about a million in 2 refunds, and 440,000 in earned income tax credit. 3 Within the office program, the people 4 coming in, we helped another 700, another 1300 5 returns, another million dollars in refunds, about 6 515,000 in earned income tax credit. 7 Overall the partner program -- universities 8 also helped during the day, and they had additional 9 programs that the BOE wasn't always present at. 10 But, all in all, with ourselves and the partners, we 11 return about 8.3 million, helped about 6500 people. 12 And it amounted to about 3.8 million in earned 13 income tax credit. It was a great benefit to the 14 community. 15 Here's a couple of pictures of our 16 volunteers getting ready to learn and be prepared. 17 A couple other things we did, but that's basically 18 what we did for VITA. 19 It was a very successful program this year. 20 It's been supported by the Board for the last six 21 years. And we're very pleased with the results. 22 I'd especially like to thank Mr. Rafael 23 Zuniga of the Outreach Services Division, who works 24 out of our Third District office, for coordinating 25 the BOE-sponsored events this year. He did an 26 excellent job. And we've received many kudos for 27 it. 28 Thank you very much, Board Members. 6 1 MS. BRIDGES: Good morning, Cynthia 2 Bridges, Executive Director. 3 The BOE has a long history of providing 4 VITA services. And I just wanted to let the Board 5 Members know that we are looking forward to 6 expanding the BOE's participation in this area by 7 partnering with FTB as it relates to the earned 8 income tax credit during the VITA season. 9 If you have any other questions, we'll -- 10 MR. HORTON: Member Ma. 11 MS. MA: Well, the Governor just, you know, 12 sponsored the California EITC for this year. And it 13 is crucial that we try to get as many people to sign 14 up and register, otherwise the program could go away 15 in the future. So, it's kind of a test pilot year. 16 Just wondering if you thought about any 17 promotional campaigns, you know, from now until 18 people are starting to think about filing that we 19 can do to get more Californians to participate? 20 MR. HAIN: We were planning to partner with 21 the Franchise Tax Board on some campaigns, 22 especially because of the new State level EITC. 23 Many -- many -- most of the people who 24 participate in VITA would also qualify for that. 25 So, we're going to co-op with them and get in and 26 try to get the word out, use our outreach events. 27 And they have a budget from some BCPs to -- 28 in to expand the program. So, we're going to 7 1 piggyback and combine with them to, hopefully, get 2 the word out Statewide to a Lot more people this 3 year. 4 MR. HORTON: Member Stowers. 5 MS. STOWERS: Yes, two things. 6 I'd like to say thank you to the employees 7 for doing the VITA program. It's very, very 8 important with respect to the California earned 9 income tax credit. 10 And the marketing, you're absolutely right, 11 there is a coalition going on right now that have 12 pretty much identified potential taxpayers who will 13 qualify for the credit. And some of the promotional 14 plans is to send out postcards to get their 15 attention as opposed a letter from the Franchise Tax 16 Board, that that being a colorful postcard, would 17 get their attention, and they will respond. 18 All -- everyone is looking to have more 19 VITA volunteers. And the Controller is going to 20 have staffing for the VITA sites throughout Southern 21 and Northern California and has identified locations 22 where most taxpayers will qualify for the California 23 credit. 24 So, again, thank you very much. 25 MR. HORTON: Members, I'd like to share 26 that California is experiencing what I call a 27 poverty epidemic, in that 40 percent of the 28 residents of the State of California are part of a 8 1 group that we refer to as the working poor, meaning 2 that they're earning less $16,000 a year. 78 3 percent of those individuals actually work. And 4 many of them find themselves, particularly in LA 5 County, over 40,000 individuals are homeless. So, 6 they will go to work and then return to their cars 7 to sleep. 8 A lot of our children who are going to 9 school, having to study, they wake up in the morning 10 and they -- you would think they rush to school to 11 get an education, but in many cases they're rushing 12 to school to just get that breakfast, that meal, the 13 lunch and so forth. And, so, they are at a serious 14 disadvantage. 15 Fortunately, we have the -- as Member Ma 16 indicated -- the Governor's allocated $384 million 17 to help those who need it the most. 18 The other reality that exists is that 19 $1.8 billion goes unclaimed every year. And the 20 State has somewhere around $180 million in refunds 21 that go unclaimed every year. 22 So, there are existing resources that are 23 available with proactivity on our part. We have the 24 resources. We have the volunteer base in order to 25 address this. 26 Last year we had some -- in District 3 -- 27 some 334 volunteers at our universities and high 28 schools and so forth. 9 1 To expand that statewide in the work that's 2 being done by Member Ma, Member Runner, as well as 3 Member Harkey, will be a huge asset, I believe, in 4 making sure that those funds that go uncollected are 5 actually available to be used. 6 The interesting thing is many of the Board 7 of Equalization entry level employees actually 8 qualify and fit into this category. So, in many 9 ways not only are we helping the general public, we 10 are also helping our colleagues and our associates 11 that work for the Board of Equalization -- which is 12 another reason why we need a pay increase, by the 13 way -- but just throw that in as a caveat. 14 So, it's a very, very serious issue, but we 15 have the resources. We have the volunteers in order 16 to address that. 17 So, let me encourage the Executive Director 18 to work with Rafael and the Outreach team and so 19 forth to see if we can expand the program so that 20 every university in the State of California has a 21 certified program at the university that is 22 certifying their students to be able to prepare 23 these returns; that the high schools that are 24 interested, they're certifying their students as 25 well. 26 There's a mutual benefit for the students. 27 The students receive college credit. They receive a 28 notation on their resume. So, there's a huge 10 1 benefit for them as well. And it's a win-win 2 proposition. 3 The other thing that we would encourage is 4 that an outreach to the -- to the non or the free 5 advertising that exists out there in a number of 6 different ways, with each of the Members taking the 7 lead to make sure we get that information out there 8 under their banner. 9 That was a long question. 10 MS. BRIDGES: Comments are always welcome, 11 yes. 12 Thank you. If there aren't any further 13 questions or comments, then that concludes our 14 report. 15 MR. HORTON: All right. Thank you very 16 much. 17 The Board will receive and file. 18 ---O0O--- 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 11 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE. 2 3 State of California ) 4 ) ss 5 County of Sacramento ) 6 7 I, JULI PRICE JACKSON, Hearing Reporter for 8 the California State Board of Equalization certify 9 that on JULY 28, 2015 I recorded verbatim, in 10 shorthand, to the best of my ability, the 11 proceedings in the above-entitled hearing; that I 12 transcribed the shorthand writing into typewriting; 13 and that the preceding pages 1 through 11 constitute 14 a complete and accurate transcription of the 15 shorthand writing. 16 17 Dated: SEPTEMBER 17, 2015 18 19 20 ____________________________ 21 JULI PRICE JACKSON 22 Hearing Reporter 23 24 25 26 27 28 12