AARP Tax Aide Announcement

We have previously announced that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the in-person AARP Foundation Tax-Aide Program will not be offered in the Southwest Cuyahoga County District this coming tax season. Our usual sites in Cuyahoga County libraries at Parma Snow Road, Parma Powers, North Royalton, and Middleburg Heights, and the Brecksville Human Services Department, Broadview Heights Human Services Department, Brook Park Methodist Church, and the Strongsville Senior Center are not available to prepare tax returns on site. We also do not have leaders and volunteers necessary to implement virtual tax preparation methods developed by AARP Foundation, which use only preparer-taxpayer contact over the internet. However, other northern Ohio districts are offering these methods.

There is no phone appointment process for AARP Foundation Tax Aide at the local or national levels. 

If you are interested in virtual tax preparation, go to aarp.org on the internet and click on the magnifying glass at the top of the page. Enter “tax assistance” in the search field that comes up and click on > next to it, which will produce a list of related pages. Select the “AARP Foundation Tax-Aide Tax Prep Assistance Request page,” which will lead you to a form requesting tax preparation assistance from AARP Tax Aide volunteers.

The form you complete collects information needed to schedule preparation of your virtual return - your name, email address, phone number, best time to contact, the years for which you need returns prepared (2017 – 2020), the city/state and location where your previous return was prepared if done by Tax-Aide volunteers, and your zip code. When you submit the form the zip code you’ve entered will automatically forward the taxpayer’s request form to a volunteer Coordinator for the Tax Aide District “assigned” to that zip code. The Coordinator will assign your return to a site that has the capacity to handle your request (the site will contact you) or in the event that no site has the capacity to prepare your return, the Coordinator will notify you.

We recommend that taxpayers who cannot participate in Tax Aide virtual processes contact a paid professional preparer. You can find those preparers in phone book yellow pages or the internet at yellowpages.com. In both cases tax preparers are listed under tax preparation.

Stephen Donovan

Retired CPA and Audit Manager for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.  Currently volunteer District Coordinator for the AARP Foundation's TaxAide Program in southwest Cuyahoga County. We prepare free tax returns for low and moderate income taxpayers with special attention to senior citizens.

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Volume 13, Issue 2, Posted 8:52 AM, 02.01.2021