If you are planning for a VITA program in 2009, read this first:

The Aspen Institute's EITC Platform is launching a second year and will be bigger and better than ever!

The platform's purpose is to provide concrete tools that raise the capacity of the EITC field to provide high quality tax preparation and asset-building services at greater scale. The on-line Quality Reviewer training was a great success, leading to a reduction in errors of 75% at tax sites that used it to implement a quality review process. With the ongoing support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, we are updating and improving the training, with an eye to making it much easier for volunteers to use. Based on it's proven effectiveness (and a cost you can't beat: FREE), you may want to consider making this training a standard part of your tax site operations.

We know that many of are already starting to plan for the 2009 tax season, so make sure to build in Quality Review -- and to use this FREE on-line training.

In addition, we are hoping to expand the platform to offer more tools that can help support the EITC/tax preparation field. Some of the other things we are looking into are:

Group buying discounts (with priority technical support) on computers and printers

Group buying discounts on tax site supplies (from toner and paper to pens, staplers and shredders).

Liability insurance to ensure that staff and volunteers at tax sites are covered if the Volunteer Protection Act does provide full coverage.

Volunteer management and scheduling tools or software.

Links to asset-building products or tools.

Tools to support sharing of ideas and best practices.

No definite word yet on any of these, but please leave space in your planning for them. We will aim on getting the word out by September on the final shape of the 2009 EITC Platform. And if you have any suggestion for other tools that might be useful, please feel free to let me know.

This work has been developed through close partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the National Community Tax Coalition, with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.