Arlington’s American Legion Post 139 is serving as the proving ground for a new Internal Revenue Service initiative that will bring assistance in completing income-tax documents to military veterans.
“I am so looking forward to seeing the results as we spread this to one American Legion and another and another,” said Sue Simon, director of Customer Assistance, Relationships and Education for the IRS, during a March 20 kickoff event.
Post 139 and its partners have launched a local, veteran-centered branch of the Filing for Freedom initiative. Local attorneys, accountants and their professional associations have joined with the IRS and Department of Defense to offer online and in-person tax-preparation services, providing them to qualifying individuals at no cost.
Post 139 “is in the forefront of this effort – a pioneer,” said Tracey Walker-Carter, director of Stakeholder Partnerships, Education & Communications at the IRS.
“Our partnership with the American Legion is essential” as the initiative, begun four years ago in Georgia, starts to expand nationwide as part of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) initiative, Walker-Carter said.
American Legion Post 139 Commander Richard Rodriguez said serving as a testing ground was an honor.
“This initiative is truly a passion of American Legion,” he said. “We hope for this to be a small foothold. We will move aggressively forward. This is going to be a big opportunity.”
The post is working to spread the word of the availability of the service.
“We shook the trees and hopefully we’re going to get a big response,” Rodriguez said. “It makes me proud . . . to see all this effort to try and help our veterans.”
(In a case of wearing a second hat that dovetails nicely with the first, Rodriguez is also chief of Facilities Management and Securities Services at the IRS.)
Veterans and active-duty military personnel can register at filingforfreedom.org and will be connected with professionals who will assist with their tax filings.
Among those who have volunteered their time are certified public accountants James Freeman and Chuck Hodges.
“We look forward to launching – and growing – our partnership with the American Legion,” Freeman said, while Hodges added that providing the assistance is a way to “say ‘thank you’ for what you do.”
American Legion Post 139 has a history of being creative in support of military veterans. It recently worked with the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing to turn its large landholdings along Washington Boulevard in Virginia Square into a seven-story, mixed-use project with preferences for military veterans in half the apartment units.
