January 29, 2019 - UPDATE!

Guidance on Taxpayer consents
for the 2019 tax filing season has changed.

Notice to all volunteers:

  • The requirement to sign Consent #2 in order to e-File has been dropped.

  • The Intake booklet won’t change.

  • Therefore, it will appear that e-Filing is not possible without taxpayer providing consent.

  • Flow through the eFile section of TaxSlayer answering questions and options as in previous years.

Plain English guidance 2018 Taxpayer Consents updated 1/30/2019

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Guidance on Obtaining Taxpayer Consents (obsolete - 1/29/2019)

Because of the required legal language on the Consent forms in the Interview and Intake Booklet that need taxpayers’ consent and signatures, many of the passages are not readily understood by either our volunteers or the taxpayers we serve. After many rounds of questions and answers, a couple of our volunteers (Mark L. with assistance from Jane L. and guidance from Regional Coordinator John W.), have produced a plain English explanation of the consents that we are asking our taxpayers to sign. You can download that document here.

Plain English explanations for 2018 Taxpayer Consents

The explanations are also shown below.

Consent #1

This consent allows your basic return information (name, address, SSN, dependents, etc) from this year’s return to “carry forward” next year at all VITA and TaxAide sites nationwide.

  • The “carry forward” feature allows us to prepare your return faster and with improved accuracy.

  • If you do not consent, “carry forward” information will be available only at the site you are currently visiting.

  • If you consent, you can go to any VITA or TaxAide site nationwide next year and your basic return information will be available to the tax preparer.

  • If you are planning a move this year, your consent is a particularly good idea.

Consent #2

This consent allows the AARP Foundation to receive summarized information from your return, combined with similar data from many other returns, for the purpose of asking for continued financial support for the AARP TaxAide program.

  • TaxSlayer, the tax software company that IRS has contracted with to file tax returns, is not willing to separate electronic returns that can be summarized from those that cannot.

  • Since funding sources want to know their grant monies are well spent and effectively targeting the population that they intended to reach, this summarized data will show them just how effective the TaxAide program is in serving senior, low and moderate income taxpayers.

  • The summarized data contains no personally identifiable information.

If NO, then must file in paper

  • Because of the inability to separate taxpayer electronic returns that have ‘opted in’ from those that have ‘opted out’, if you do not give this consent, we must prepare your return for paper filing.

  • In other words, 100% of the e-filed returns must have consented to ‘opt in’ to this level of information sharing in order that 100% of the efiled returns can be shared with AARP Foundation.

Consent #3

This consent permits the AARP Foundation to contact you with information about other free AARP Foundation products and services that they think might be of interest to you.

  • This consent will reveal personally identifiable information (name, contact information and return profile) to AARP Foundation.

  • If you do not wish AARP Foundation to contact you about its other available services, or you simply do not wish to reveal your personally identifiable information to other divisions within AARP Foundation, you should refuse consent.