Running Head: TAX SYSTEMS 1 Tax systems Name Institution Professor Course Date

TAX SYSTEMS 2 PROJECT 1 The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance is a very helpful program as it assists people in filing their tax returns ( VITA ). It does not assist the general public but it assists only certain category of individuals which are comprised of disabled persons, taxpayers who speak limited English as well as individuals earning less or $ 54,000 ( VITA ). Tax filling work in VITA program is conducted by a group of volunteers who are certified by IRS. VITA program centers are located in various convenient centers such as shopping malls, libraries, and schools ( VITA ). Despite the centers being evenly distributed, the program is not efficient. This is because there is a shortage of IRS-certified volunteers to assist the public. Furthermore, the available volunteers are not evenly distributed in all centers ( VITA ). Some of these sites have a large number of volunteers to assist these individuals, while other sites have very few volunteers compared to the number of people visiting the site for assistance. This program is faced with a lot of challenges which requires immediate remedy to restore the program’s efficiency, reliability, and accuracy. IRS-certified volunteers are not only evenly distributed among all the program sites but they are also in deficiency (Christensen & Woodland, 2015). This is because VITA has only partnered with one university, Southern New Hampshire University, whose students are trained and certified by IRS to participate in their tax return filling programs (Christensen & Woodland, 2015). The VITA program is more of manual consequently making the process tedious. It is also challenging for the VITA to serve their clients in the remote areas since its sites are yet to reach the remote areas (Christensen & Woodland, 2015). It only serves clients physically visiting the IRS- certified personnel at the Southern New Hemisphere University Site. In addition, the process of filing tax return is complicated, long and non-efficient. the process of

TAX SYSTEMS 3 checking their clients ‘sensitive information is information is manually conducted making it not secure as it can easily fall into the hands of malicious individuals who can manipulate the information. The organization is in need of a system which will be in a position of allowing multiple sites document submission to the SNHU VITA site for filling. Mechanism of easily working on the submitted documents without any duplication also needs to be formulated. Partnership with more universities other than Southern New Hemisphere University is required as a means of addressing volunteer shortage ( VITA ). Security of the currently used TaxSlayer Pro software requires enhancement. An online portal where clients even those in the remote areas can submit their documents without physical visitation of the sites needs to be formulated. Through this portal, the taxpayers will be able to review the status of their document.