Student volunteers help Oswego residents with tax returns

OSWEGO, N.Y. — It is officially tax season.  At Hamilton Home on the east side of Oswego, student volunteers from SUNY Oswego are lending a hand to community members by reviewing their tax returns. The volunteers are accounting students, and they are applying what they have learned in class to help people file accurate tax returns.

“So, we started in the first week of January and we will run through until April 15. The program is the product of SUNY Oswego campus since the late 90s” said Andrea Pagano, a visiting accounting professor and a supervisor of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program or VITA.

Many Oswego residents are wondering how the new federal tax law will impact this year’s returns.  SUNY Oswego Accounting Professor Dean Crawford says, when it comes to filing your 2017 returns, the new tax laws will have little to no impact.  Filers won’t notice significant change until filing their 2018 returns one year from now.

Professor Crawford says some residents in high-tax states, like New York and California, can expect their federal tax contributions to increase under the new tax policy because the law has eliminated some tax exemptions and deductions, including state income tax.