1. AARP Foundation Tax-Aide
Regional/National Items
Results
Goals
TaxSlayer Enhancements
Regional Coordinator Role
This is the primary cover page.

2. 2017 Filing Season Results – Tax-Aide
Achieved 94.25% Accuracy Rate
Prepared Over 1.5 Million Federal Returns
Prepared Over 1.2 Million State Returns
Achieved 99% Electronic Filing Rate
IRS Praised our Ability to Persevere and Overcome the Startup Difficulties
Modified IRS Slides – these results are for R08
Yes, there was a dip
- In numbers
- In accuracy
However, the dip was slight and performance was far better than anticipated.

3. TAKE A BOW

4. Motivation for volunteering-- differences between new and returning counselors (n=9,882)

5. Asking for assistance from peers decreases as counselor experience increases.
Recommendation 1
Ensure adequate opportunity for counselors of all ages to practice using the new software. Assure them that this practice will lead them to a level of familiarity they achieved with TaxWise.
Recommendation 2
Encourage counselors with more experience to get involved with development and promotion of training resources. Leverage the confident counselors with less years of experience to share how they are working with TaxSlayer.
***p<.001

6. 2018 Filing Season Modifications
TaxSlayer Enhancements
Currently TaxSlayer Has Completed Over 300 Enhancements That Have Been Integrated To Existing Software Available for Review
TaxSlayer Working on Additional Enhancements That Will Be Available with 2018 Production Software
Key Changes to Date:
Due diligence pages will not be required
“Global” carryover
More forms can be viewed R

7. 2018 Filing Season Modifications
TaxSlayer Enhancements
TaxSlayer Has Improved State Software to Enhance User Experience
Completely Overhauled State Infrastructure
States Will Have More Knowledge of What is on Federal Returns
Enables Pulling of Federal Data to State Returns
Selecting the Continue Button Will Post (Save) Data on Each Page
Field Level Validation Will Occur on Each Page R

8. 2018 Filing Season Modifications
TaxSlayer Enhancements
TaxSlayer Has Improved Server Capacity
Increased Server Capacity Three Fold
VITA/TCE Servers Up to 6 Servers
Calculation Servers Up to 16 Servers
Added Ability to Quickly Scale Web and Calculation Servers
Enabled Hot Add CPU and Memory Features
Previous Vendor Enhancement Response R

9. 2018 Filing Season Modifications
TaxSlayer Enhancements
2018 Filing Season Preparations
TaxSlayer Added a “What’s New” Section on the Blog
Provides Detail on Changes Made to Date
Previews Pending Changes
Training Videos and Mini Guides on Brainshark Have Already Been Updated
November “Freeze”
Stress Tests Planned
More Realistic to Tax Season Operations R

10. Tax-Aide Program Goals
Three Goals Areas Developed by NLT August 2016
Recruiting more volunteers
Developing more leaders
Maintaining quality
1. Non – Traditional Recruits and Mentoring of 1-2 year counselors
2. Role span reduction and broader perspective on who can fill them
3. Intake sheet and QR
4. More volunteers = more people served

11. Quality is more important than production.
Tax-Aide Policies
Quality is more important than production.
We are not H&R Block

12. Regional Coordinator Role
In Role 6/1/2017
Previous Service
Representative on National Leadership Team
Policy Determination
Obtains and Manages Regional Budget (2018)
Resource to State Coordinators
Advocate to National Staff
Delegation to States
Mention DG (new AND)
Meeting Expenses this year
Rationale behind change