Tax season is looking brighter for many New Yorkers this year, thanks to Fordham students who are rolling up their sleeves to help low-income and elderly residents file returns—and assist them in addressing complications when the IRS comes calling.
Undergraduate students enrolled in the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program are working with clients to ensure their forms are in order before the April 15 deadline. And Fordham Law students working at the school’s Federal Tax Clinic are helping clients respond to IRS accusations, from underreporting income to improper deductions.
“When a client works with someone who understands the system the way we do, they get this sense of not only being protected, but also the hope that their case is going to be resolved in a better way,” said Elizabeth Maresca, a clinical law professor who supervises the Federal Tax Clinic. “So not only are our students helping people in need, but they’re also growing in their professional lives.”
Learning in the Field
Adelaide Schroeck, a first-year Gabelli School of Business student, was assigned through VITA to the Center for Family Life, a nonprofit in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Schroeck helps clients complete basic forms for individual and joint tax returns.
“It’s been exciting to learn that I actually have an affinity for taxes because I was under the impression before I started that a tax job was mundane,” said Schroeck, who hopes to intern in the taxation area during her time at Fordham and parlay the experience into a career in the field. “It’s really not, because every client’s situation is so unique that you’re learning something new every time.”
Schroeck is one of 15 students who earned an IRS certificate through VITA that allows them to help clients complete basic tax returns. She commutes on Saturdays to the Brooklyn organization, where a translator helps non-English speakers and a certified public accountant double-checks Schroeck’s work.
The experience has opened her eyes to the importance of volunteers. On one occasion, she spent two hours keeping a young girl company while the child’s mother worked through a complicated return.
“Her mother’s taxes were taking a really long time because she’d just filed for homelessness. That was very somber, but it was great to be able to bring some light into this little girl’s life,” she said.
Helping Since Childhood
Isabella Luquez, another first-year Gabelli School student who grew up just outside of Miami, has been volunteering in the Financial District at Fedcap, an employment nonprofit, every Wednesday. For her, the work hits close to home.
Luquez first helped her own family navigate their taxes when she was just 8 years old. Like many non-English speakers, her parents were intimidated and confused by tax forms; she said they could have benefited greatly from a program like VITA
“When I’m volunteering, it almost feels like I’m at home helping my family, except now I have knowledge that I didn’t have back then,” said Luquez, who wants to attend law school after graduation and has developed an appreciation for tax law through the VITA program.
When the IRS Comes Knocking
Fordham Law students Ginikachi Okeke, Mariah Watkins, Abbie Pike, and Kyle Blake work with clients to clear up outstanding cases with the IRS.
While VITA helps clients get their paperwork right, Fordham Law School’s Federal Tax Clinic steps in when things have gone wrong. Students working in teams assist clients who come to the clinic—often as a last resort.
This spring, Ginikachi Okeke, Abbie Pike, and Mariah Watkins filed a complaint in U.S. District Court on behalf of a woman who was defrauded out of nearly $100,000 in an internet scam eight years ago. They’re arguing that she was entitled to deduct that income from her taxes and is entitled to a refund from the IRS.
Pike said working with the woman highlighted how ill-equipped most people are to deal with the courts and taxes.
“What’s struck me about this specific case is that the outcome can completely turn on the meaning of one word. That’s not really how we operate in everyday life,” she said. “But with the law, … it can completely dictate how the case will be resolved.”
Finding a Purpose
Kyle Blake, who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Fordham in 2022, is part of a different team at the clinic pursuing innocent spouse relief for a woman whose ex-husband filed joint tax returns without her consent. They’re arguing that the penalties she’s incurred should be dismissed because the errors were made in her name without her permission.
Like Pike, he says working with clients has revealed how often vulnerable people end up in the IRS’s crosshairs—and it has refocused his sense of why he came to law school in the first place.
“In your first year, you’re so concerned with grades and setting yourself up for a job,” he said. “But this client-facing service role, focused on helping people, helped me find my purpose in law school.”
