AARP Foundation Tax-Aide Leader Communication
To: State Management Team (SMT) Members (SC, ASC, ADS, PCS, PVS, TRS, TCS), AC, DC, LC, TC, TRC and Shift Coordinators
CC: National Leadership Team (Regional Coordinators, Committee Chairs), Regional Advisors, Committee Members
From: National Leadership Team
Subject: Tax-Aide Leader Comm 11-28-2025
Leader Communication – November 28
TAXPAYER CAMPAIGN ZIP CODE BOOST & SURPRESS REPORTS DUE DEC. 10
As the Foundation Marketing team is preparing to launch the taxpayer digital outreach campaign, we ask state coordinators to tell us if there are areas where they’d like to boost the national digital campaign to try and reach more taxpayers, or if there are areas with capacity issues and the campaign should be suppressed. Please coordinate with your LCs and DCs to collect and send your initial list to Barbara McCauley-McCormack at bmccauleymccormack@aarp.org by Wednesday, December 10. You will be able to boost and suppress zip codes as needed during the campaign on a two-week rotation starting February 1. Reminders will be shared in Leader Comm.
FAST FAQs UPDATE
The tool designed to answer volunteer questions is ready for you and members of your Tax-Aide team as they prepare for the TY25 tax season! To access Fast FAQs, click here . This tool is brought to you by the Filing Season Readiness Working Group; a forerunner to a new National Field Service Committee which will be on board May 2026.
This document, accessible through Chromebook Tax-Aide links, has sections on recruitment, training, certifications, technology, leadership roles and operations. It is designed to help volunteers find the information they need without having to fire off an email or phone someone. Fast FAQs will either answer the question or point to existing documents for the answer.
There are two quick and easy ways to use Fast FAQs to find an answer to your questions: 1) Use the table of contents to search for a topic, or 2) use the search process by pressing the CTRL and F keys simultaneously, then type in a key word in the “find” box.
As a leader, share this information with the volunteers on your team! The working group is available to answer questions and to incorporate your suggestions as to how they can improve this tool. You can reach them at: TaxAide_FieldSupport@Googlegroups.com
WAIT TO TAKE THE IRS CERTIFICATION TESTS
Instructors are advised to wait a few days after Link & Learn certification comes online before taking their tests to ensure everything is working properly. Other volunteers should wait an additional couple of weeks — there's no rush!
We've refreshed Taking the IRS Certification Tests Online for TY25 and revised our OBBBA-related guidance available in Tax-Aide's Updated Form 6744 VITA/TCE Volunteer Assistor’s Test/Retest.
The revisions include:
Pages 47 and 72 say to use the return prepared in Practice Lab to determine your answer. TaxSlayer updated their standard deduction tables to post-OBBBA tax law on 11/19/2025.
Page 203 is dedicated to our "Important Guidance for AARP Foundation Tax-Aide Volunteers." This now lists all the tests that are not affected, clarifies the instructions for the Basic test, and adds instructions for the Foreign Student test.
Page 204 consolidates the otherwise unchanged errata.
Both of the above can also be found in NTTC Training Resource Links and NTTC New Volunteers Training Links.