How to Prepare for 2026 Tax Season

For more on the 2026 tax season, we are joined by Mary Metter. Mary works for the United Way of Lee Hendry and Glades County, and you manage an incredible program from the IRS. And that program is called Vida, and that helps people file their taxes for free. Can you tell me more about this program? Sure. Vida stands for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. We recruit and train volunteers, get them IRS certified to do basic tax returns out in the community. We cover Lee, Hendry, Glades, Charlotte County and the city of Immokalee. And you are over all of those locations. You mentioned to me you had 9000 people that you helped last year. We did 9009 returns during, from January through September last year, $9.3 million of refunds were issued back to the community, and they didn't have to pay to do their taxes. Yeah. Who qualifies for this program with Fina? Our income limit is $70,000. We also have another program called TCE Tax Counseling for the elderly, which the focus is more on seniors. But we can see any age there and they don't have an income limit. And and it's free and that's absolutely free. We do basic returns. Nothing complicated. And we had talked a little bit. There are some new changes this year. The, one big beautiful bill at a created some changes taxpayers really need to be aware of. Can you touch on on a few of them? Sure. These are actually some really good benefits, for a lot of the taxpayers. So the standard deduction went from 14,600 last year to 15,007 50 for a single person. It's double if you are married. If you are over 65, you even get an additional 1600 to 2000, depending if you're married or not. And the new wonderful thing that happened was the enhanced senior deduction. So if you have a Social Security number and you're over 65, you get an extra $6,000 deduction on top of that. And if you're married and you're both over 65 that's 12,000. And what the standard deduction is, is that's how much you can make without having to pay income tax on it. So $46,700 you don't have to pay tax on if you were married filing jointly and both over 65. And you also mentioned there's a new vehicle. And over time there's some some new changes for those types of, scenarios. So there's this new, reduced tax on overtime, reduced tax on tip earnings. And then also there's a reduction or a deduction, excuse me, on vehicle interest that was paid. So for the reduced tax on tips, up to $25,000 in tip income will not be taxed. And if it's overtime after $12,500 in overtime, that's earned from working more than 40 hours in a week could be income tax free. And for vehicles, it has to be a brand new vehicle assembled in the United States, has to be purchased with a loan. The interest on that for the year is also not going to be taxed. So that's a deduction you can take. Those are wonderful benefits. They're amazing especially for servers. And so many people that make tips and rely on tips. We had a wonderful young lady come in and she made over $40,000 in tip income, and she didn't have to pay tax on $25,000 of it. So that was a huge blessing for her. I was going to say, bless that woman. That's fantastic. Can you talk about what some of the common mistakes are that people make when they're filing taxes, if they don't use a service like yours? Absolutely. So, one of the most common one is choosing the wrong filing status or claiming or not claiming dependents that they should. We see that a lot. A lot of data entry errors, putting things in the wrong places. We also have quite a few people not reporting their marketplace health insurance. Simple data entry. Those is most of it. Iris loves to send those people to help fix their returns. And you had mentioned to me that there are four options that people can choose from through your program, how they can file the taxes, can you explain what those options are? So we have the traditional in-person program where you can come in and sit with somebody, and we'll do your taxes for you. We have out in Lehigh Valley drop off program where you come in, we talk to you, get your information, you come back a week later and your tax returns are done. We have get your refund, which is 100% in virtual. So you can sit at home, upload your documents and somebody will be working on your return virtually. And then we also have my free taxes where you can do your own taxes online yourself. And it's all free made possible by volunteers through the United Way. Absolutely correct. Absolutely. And, my understanding is you had 250 volunteers and you have at least 32 locations and some some appointments are so booked out that that location isn't accepting new appointments till April. And we're only in February. Exactly. We do have more volunteers coming on. So we have approximately 250 now and people are still sending in their certification. So we'll be able to open up a few more appointments in some places. We do have a lot of sites that are not full, have plenty of openings, especially in the Estero area, and other locations as well. So there are plenty of appointments out there if people just want to come on in. We'd love to help them. And you have CPAs that volunteer. We have some retired CPAs, a retired IRS person, retired financial advisors. But we also have high school students, college students, retired people, homemakers, a lot of bank employees who help support us. They all have to go through the same certification. And we have some amazing high school students. You would not believe how great they are. Lots of smarts there. That's smart kids out there. What is the deadline to sign up for this program? If someone's watching or listening and they want to take advantage of it. Well, sooner rather than later you can book your appointment further out. So if you don't normally get your documents into March, you can always book an appointment for March or April. So sooner rather than later. The deadline for filing is April 15th. But we do have about nine sites that stay open year round. So if you can't file on time, or if you get those love letters from the IRS you need help with or you need to and then your taxes, we are here year round to serve love letters from the IRS. That is such a positive spin on something like that. But if they file an extension, you're open, through the rest of the year to help with those, particular, situations. All right. Anything else you want us to know about the program or your services? To make an appointment, they can call 211 or our landline number, which is (239) 433-3900, because places like city of Immokalee and Hendry County, the two and one doesn't connect generally to us all. The time. We can also or they can also book at United Way. Lee dawg, free tax prep. That's great news. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing this very important information. You're most welcome. Thank you for having me out. Thank you, Miss Metro. Thank you so much. Thanks for watching. We've got more great content for you, from the news to the arts to the environment. So be sure to like and subscribe to the YouTube channel and follow us on all of the social media platforms for the stories that matter to you.