Tax season is upon us—here’s how you can get help filing your returns for free.

Celia Jiménez here, thinking I should do my taxes soon. 

If you are in the same boat, and earn up to $67,000, VITA, a free tax-preparation service provided by United Way Monterey County, is a good option to turn to.

“We have a strong group of volunteers,” says Katy Castagna, UWMC’s CEO, noting there are more than 80 volunteers helping people to file their tax returns.

The program has eight sites across the county including Salinas, Marina and Soledad.

“One of the things we're really proud about this year is that we are offering the service in Pajaro,” Castagna says.

Since the current immigration climate has affected the daily lives of some families, Castagna says it’s possible that it’s affecting the number of people seeking the service.

“We do seem to have fewer people than we served last year at this time,” she says, but adds that it could be for different reasons, such as available dates and locations. “Certainly now there's a lot of concern also about what information that IRS shares with other departments in the government.”

The other reason could be that the program has a new IRS liaison. The previous one was in the midst of a probation period, and was fired during the wave of budget cuts from the federal government. Their new liaison already had a full load, and six more counties, including Monterey County, were added to her list. 

VITA is a volunteer-driven program that could impact where their sites are located. “A lot of our production depends on the numbers of volunteers that are on site to do the service when the clients come,” Castagna says.

People have two in-person options: schedule an appointment or walk-in to any of the sites. Or, they can file their taxes on their own online. “There's a free tax filing software for anybody that wants to try and do their own, so they're not waiting for an appointment or waiting in line at a drop-in site,” Castagna says.

I haven’t used the VITA free online service but I have filed my own taxes for the past few years. Do you prefer to file your own taxes or go with a tax preparer?

With all these changes at the federal level, including the IRS, many fear their tax returns will take longer to process than usual. Have you encountered that issue so far?