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LATEST UPDDATE: 3-18-2026
News
News
March 18, 2026 - NC Refunds delayed
North Carolina began processing tax refunds on March 9, 2026. If a return was filed/accepted in February, their website says to allow 5 weeks from March 2 for refunds. If a return was filed in March, allow 6 weeks from the date the return was filed/accepted. All with the normal caveat that it may take longer. Read more: The Refund Process | NCDOR
March 13, 2026 - Week Six of Eleven Feedback
This year, we're piloting online feedback forms for Seymour and Passmore centers. After analyzing our printed client feedback last year, I thought it would be more useful to ask for feedback after appointments are completed, even considering that this would result in fewer responses. Here's a summary of the feedback - updated in real time.
Everyone who comes in for an appointment receives an email inviting them to provide anonymous feedback. We also post QR codes for in-person clients to provide their feedback.
We've had 100 responses so far with 85% leaving explanations for their ratings.
Our current rating is 9.85 out of 10 -- overwhelmingly positive. The constructive feedback has been related to waiting times, the desire for us to give volunteers more space, or dissatisfaction if a return was out of scope.
I'll post some of the feedback on-site. Give it a quick read when you're at Seymour or Passmore.
February 28, 2026 - Updated AOC optimization link and Tax Alert
Bill Hawkins' AOC Optimization tool link has been updated on Passmore and Seymour Chromebooks. You can download the Excel and Open Office versions from Reinvestment Partners' VITA Resources page.
QSRA 2026-01, Intake/Interview and Quality Review Certification Test Update was issued in January 2026, but the notification for the alert was sent this week. This alert addressed errors in Publication 5101, VITA/TCE Intake/Interview and Quality Review Training, for Question 3 and Publication 5838, VITA/TCE Intake/Interview and Quality Review Handbook, for Question 3 on the referenced Certification Test.
February 19, 2026 - Pub 4012-A (with Updates) PDF is available
The updated Publication 4012-A PDF is now available. Please stop using the original Publication 4012 PDF that contained errors and use this revised version to make sure you're referencing the most current information.
The Chromebooks at Seymour and Passmore center will be updated as soon as they're restarted for the next volunteer sessions (Friday, February 20, 2026 or Saturday, February 21, 2026.)
December 18, 2025 - Printed Training Materials are Available for Pickup
The VITA Publications for TY 2025 (4012 and 6744) have arrived and are available for you to pick up at Seymour Center, along with a copy of VITA/TCE Volunteer Tax Alert 2026-01 and VITA/TCE Volunteer Tax Alert 2026-02, which include updates to 6744 Basic and Military tests.
Please pick up your books from the wire rack in the staff work area behind the front desk. There's a list to mark your name off when you pick them up.
Seymour Center is open Mon-Thu 8 am-9 pm and Fri-Sat 8 am- 8 pm. We will be closed December 24-26.
If you're scheduled to come in for an upcoming volunteer orientation, I'll have your materials there for you.
December 15, 2025 - Certification Website is Live
Link and Learn e-learning tax lessons are not updated for tax year 2025, yet.
The Certification Test/Retest website is live for tax year 2025 and tested successfully for four tests (VSOC, Intake/Interview, Advanced, and Site Coordinator tests) using TaxSlayer's Practice Lab for Advanced Scenarios 7, 8, and 9. All answers on the Advanced test are correct, so those who like to get 100% correct on the exam, may. You'll notice that this updated certification website adds one extra "question" to each test. The final question on each test asks if you're ready to submit your answers. It is not graded and shouldn't be counted as a question.
When you pass your certifications to volunteer this year, please review your Profile:
Make sure that your legal name and address match your photo ID.
Include your cell phone number
Select SPEC Area 1
Sponsoring partner name/site name: Orange County Dept on Aging VITA
Update the number of years you've volunteered for this tax season. For most people, this will mean adding 1 to the existing number in your profile. Your first year as a volunteer, the answer should be 1.
Sponsoring Site: Orange County Dept on Aging VITA
Volunteer Position(s): VITA Volunteer
If you'd like Continuing Education Credits for the first time, please reach out to Laura Prinzhorn to request the SIDN to enter with your PTIN on your profile.
Click the green Save button at the top of the screen
Send your volunteer agreement to us by Noon on Friday, January 30, 2026.
From the home page or Volunteer Agreement page, download the signed Volunteer Agreement (PDF)
Check your form for accurate profile information. Make changes to your profile, save and then click Regenerate and sign again to include your changes.
Add your LAST NAME to the beginning of the file name (or change the file name to your last name)
Attach this PDF to an email and send it to vitacertify@gmail.com.
Include your name and cell phone number in the body of the email.
This will be used to give you access to TaxSlayer Pro. You'll need your Smartphone for multi-factor authentication every time you volunteer to check for the code sent either to your email address or cell phone number.
Do not email your Certificates. These are for you and do not need to be printed nor emailed in. We only need your Volunteer Agreement (Form 13615).
December 11, 2025 - NC Coalition Statewide Training Handouts
I've posted the three handouts from today's statewide training by Bill Hawkins. I made two of these into PDFs and I edited the list of occupations to include the final occupation 809 on page 2.
December 9, 2025 - We are still awaiting all printed materials and tax year 2025 updates to Link and Learn lessons and the Certification website.
Our printed materials (4012s, 6744s, etc.) have NOT arrived. I've requested another check on it from the IRS and will update you when I know more.
The IRS briefly opened the certification website last week, however it is back offline. When it was live, it's reported that at least one question on the Advanced Certification exam was scored incorrectly. Please do not rush your certification. I'll let you know when it's live and seems stable.
November 17, 2025 - 2025 Practice Lab: Known Issues
2025 Practice Lab: Known Issues – VITA/TCE Blog
With the release of a new application year (2025), some oddities and functionality issues may occur. Below are items that have been identified and reported to our development team. This will be a fluid blog post of known functionality issues within the 2025 Practice Lab. NOTE: You will see various 2024 forms and calculations still used which is normal this time of year as tax changes/updates are ongoing.
2025 Standard Deduction amounts incorrect
Waiting on various grid UI updates in various menus like the 1099-R grid for example
Unable to access 1099-INT/DIV taxable state entry pages
Adding Taxpayer Notes inside a return not working as expected
November 17, 2025 - Added link to register for NC Tax Law training
Register now to attend the 10th annual North Carolina statewide tax law training on December 10, 2025. Please register whether you plan to attend in person, by zoom, or if you prefer to watch the recorded Zoom session later. Note that the Zoom link and handouts will be sent out the day before the training. In the past, these have come out late that evening.
November 13, 2025 - Updates below, including addition of training documents for optional certifications and correction to link for Tax Alert VTA 2026-02. The Training, Testing & Certification page is also updated. November 4, 2025 - Updates below, including the launch of Practice Lab and publication of a second tax alert referencing errors in Form 6744 text booklet applicable for the Basic test. October 16, 2025: Links to tax year 2025 updated IRS materials below. Where a publication has not been updated, it's noted. This list will be updated 1-2 times per month.
Volunteer Information Advisory Message
Tue 10/28/2025 1:59 PM
This Information Advisory is being sent to provide filing season readiness information for Filing Season 2026.
Background: The Form 6744 VITA/TCE Volunteer Test/Retest questions are based on pre-OBBBA tax law. Therefore, all test answers are also based on pre-OBBBA tax law in effect at the time. This may cause volunteers to make inadvertent errors when completing certification tests.
Message for volunteers: Volunteers should base their certification test/retest answers using the tax law content shown in the lessons of the Publication 4491 and Publication 4012. Volunteers should NOT base their test/retest answers on OBBBA tax law changes. The Link & Learn Taxes Certification site is programmed for pre-OBBBA tax law answers only.
VTA 2026-01 Changes to Form 6744, VITA/TCE Volunteer Assistor’s Test/Retest has been issued to address errors in Form 6744 VITA/TCE Volunteer Test/Retest
VTA 2026-02 Changes to Form 6744, VITA/TCE Volunteer Assistor’s Test/Retest has been issued to address errors in Form 6744 VITA/TCE Volunteer Test/Retest
Training documents available (will be updated one or two times per month:)
Publication 4011, VITA/TCE Foreign Student and Scholar Volunteer Resource Guide
Publication 4961, VITA/TCE Volunteer Standards of Conduct – Ethics Training
Publication 5101, VITA/TCE Intake/Interview and Quality Review Training
Publication 5166, VITA/TCE Volunteer Quality Site Requirements
Publication 5324, Quality Site Requirements for Alternative Filing Models
Publication 5325, Fact Sheet: Filing Season Training for SPEC Partners and Volunteers: Has not been updated for Tax Year 2025
Publication 5377, Practice Lab for VITA/TCE Partners and Volunteers
Publication 5379, Frequently Asked Questions – Link & Learn Taxes Volunteer Certification Test
Publication 5547, IRS Over-the-Phone Interpreter (OPI) Service
Publication 5683, VITA/TCE Handbook for Partners and Site Coordinators
Publication 5838, VITA/TCE Intake/Interview and Quality Review Handbook
VITA/TCE Central your one-stop shop for volunteer training
Link & Learn Taxes Lessons: Have not been updated for Tax Year 2025
Publication 5362, Fact Sheet: Continuing Education Credits (2024): Has not been updated for Tax Year 2025
Publication 5101, Intake/Interview and Quality Review Training
Primary Contacts
Primary Contacts
Laura Prinzhorn – Program Manager, Volunteer Management, New Volunteer Training, In-person sites, OCNC VITA Team Support Website, Sign-up Genius, Google Groups, Google Drive
Joan East – Quality Review
Jill Hallenbeck – Site Coordinator for Virtual VITA
Seymour Center Front Desk 919-968-2070
Passmore Center Front Desk 919-245-2015
VITA Appointments 919-245-4242 (opening January 12, 2026)
Volunteer Google Groups
Volunteer Google Groups
Add the following addresses to your email contacts and mark emails that are in your SPAM folder safe in order to make sure you receive the latest information about the VITA program.
Primary Links
Primary Links
VITA TY2025 Team folder on Google Drive – OC VITA documents, training, links
Orange VITA News – All news, alerts and other communication for the Team (TY2024)
Tax Preparer & Quality Reviewer Sign Up Lists – Must be fully certified to sign up (TY2023)
IRS Alerts – IRS alerts for VITA (required reading) (TY2025)
Required Site Documents – IRS Quality Site Requirements pubs and documents (TY2024)
TaxSlayer What We Know – Current status of TaxSlayer Pro problems and fixes
VITA Password Sheet – A convenient way to remember your VITA credentials
Tax Tools and Reference Links
Tax Tools and Reference Links
This is an extensive collection of tools and references for VITA volunteers, provided by TaxVolunteers.com.
A tool from Jeff Bogart using the Simplified Method
Links to the December 2025 NC Statewide VITA tax training with Bill Hawkins including video, revised presentation, handouts, and AOC workbooks
A very useful chart showing what tests that have to be met for various tax benefits and statuses. (Presented by Bill Hawkins at the 12/2019 training.)
Also see the Dependents (or not) Chart in the Cheat Sheets, Checklists, & Guides from the TaxVolunteers.com Toolkit.
Another useful chart from ProsperityNow is All Those Kids summarizing the rules for Qualifying Child and Qualifying Relative. (2022)
This is a complete guide to all sections, boxes and codes of Schedule K-1 Form 1041 (Trusts & Estates). Also useful is the IRS pub, Instructions for Schedule K-1 (Form 1041) for a Beneficiary Filling Form 1040, which is also linked in the TaxSlayer article.
This is a link to US Obligation information for the most common brokerage companies, prepared by the Chatham County VITA team. It saves a lot of time in hunting down the % to use when computing the NC subtraction when it's not supplied on the brokers statement
Natural disasters like a hurricane or tornado can be unpredictable and frightening. Oftentimes, it can be challenging to anticipate all the ways a disaster could affect you, your business, and your property.
This guide will equip you to handle disasters in two ways:
By ensuring you are more informed and better prepared to make financial decisions immediately following a disaster. To do that, this guide will provide you with an understanding of how the government defines a disaster area, the tax implications associated with being located in a disaster area, how the use of different financial resources impact your taxes, and how to protect important documents.
By giving you the tools you will need to file your taxes properly and confidently after receiving disaster assistance. To do that, this guide will give you step-by step filing instructions using TaxSlayer software for both your personal and business needs.
IRS Tax Reference
IRS Tax Reference
Get an IP PIN – Get or retrieve an Identity Protection PIN
IRS Payment Options – Pay Online, Installment Plans, etc.
Pub 5136 – Links to IRS taxpayer tools and resources
Taxpayer IRS Account Access – Account records and/or tax return transcripts for current and past years
Pub 4012 – Current version VITA/TCE Volunteer Resource Guide (10/2024)
Pub 4012 Historical Library – Pub 4012 from TY2008 to present
NC Tax Reference
NC Tax Reference
Page updated
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