UW Credit Union has been the long term coordinator of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Center located on University Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin. While we started the predecessor sites, UW Credit Union has done an incredible job of building the program and strengthening its: financial literacy component, viability and visibility. The original program we at the Center on Business and Poverty ran was a mobile program, the credit union has established a more focused approach where, over the last decade, tax forms have either been completed at the University Avenue site of the credit union or at Madison College. The primary recipients of service are lower income employees of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, as well as students. The prior program also focused on providing free tax form completion for employees and community members associated with: Food Fight Restaurant Group, and Emerson Elementary School and others at UW Madison. One of the most beneficial elements of the program has been that students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are trained in how to complete the tax forms and serve the communities that need assistance. The students come from the accounting program at the Wisconsin School of Business. Over the years, the volunteers have completed more than 5,000 sets of free tax forms and have brought back more than $10 million of tax credits to the local community.
