La Casa de Esperanza will be ending tax-filing appointments for former Social Development Commission clients at the Internal Revenue Service’s office later this month, SDC Board Chair Barbara Toles said Thursday.
The final dates for people who used the SDC for tax help to schedule an appointment with La Casa at the IRS, 211 W. Wisconsin Ave., are Monday, July 22, through Wednesday, July 24.
“Anyone who has not been contacted about their return, they need to call to make an appointment or make an appointment online,” Toles said.
SDC paused its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, program in late April when the agency suddenly suspended operations and laid off its employees, causing the IRS and La Casa to step in to help people who used the program and needed to finish their returns.
La Casa de Esperanza has transmitted 339 tax returns for clients who were impacted by the SDC, as of July 11, according to Gina Sanchez Juarez, director of the Center for Financial Stability.
Clients can use La Casa’s online appointment scheduler for VITA services or call La Casa’s Center for Financial Stability at 262-832-1534.
After July 24, remaining clients can make appointments with La Casa de Esperanza at its office, at 134 Wisconsin Ave., Waukesha.
Dates for appointments at this location include July 31, Aug. 7, Aug, 14, Aug. 21 and Aug, 28, though the schedule might be adjusted, Sanchez Juarez said.
La Casa’s VITA staff will continue to call former SDC VITA clients who have not made appointments yet.
The SDC Board of Commissioners met Thursday at the African American Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin, 1920 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, where it spent most of the meeting in closed session.
Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
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