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FOCUS Tax Workshops at PSU
For the 2006 tax year (that is, returns due April 17, 2007), FOCUS conducted three tax workshops at Portland State University for international students and scholars. These were held on three consecutive Tuesdays beginning March 27 .
In the past, students just showed up with their documents (such as W-2’s) and they filled out the forms and then we helped them with the financial parts. This year we tried something different. We advertised that they should fill out the forms ahead of time using a tax help website that I put together to given them assistance. They could then bring the (mostly) completed forms for review. Of the 195 that came to our workshops, very few did that.
We had twelve volunteers for the tax workshops this year. Gary Ferrill, recently retired from the IRS, had previously provided the training for our volunteers. It was great to have his expertise on hand at all three sessions. In addition to Gary and me, Kay Anderson and Burt Jarvis were also present at all three workshops.
Autumn Bauwens assisted me with “triage” (welcoming the students and getting them started with filling out their forms). Helping with one or more workshops were Jim Saunders, Fred Wagner, Wilbur Wood, and first-timers John Garney, Dean Rowley, Georgia Dan, Laura Hashimoto.
We had a great team of volunteers this year.
Below is a preliminary count (by country) of who came to our workshops.
1 Burkina Faso
1 Canada
27 China
1 Columbia
2 Costa Rica
2 Ecuador
2 England
2 France
4 Germany
2 Hong Kong
74 India
2 Indonesia
22 Japan
1 Kazakhstan
14 Korea
2 Malaysia
2 Mexico
1 Morocco
2 Myanmar
2 Nepal
2 Pakistan
1 Poland
2 Russia
2 Saudi Arabia
1 Spain
1 Sri Lanka
1 Sweden
2 Taiwan
5 Thailand
2 Tiawan
2 Turkey
1 Uganda
1 Venezuala
6 Vietnam
195 Grand Total