CSUN Tax Help Boosts Economy

The CSUN Nazarian College VITA Clinic, a program of California State University – Northridge to help low-income residents prepare their taxes, ranked No. 1 in Southern California this year based on sheer size among 398 volunteer income tax assistance, or VITA, programs in the region. CSUN students assisted more than 8,700 Valley residents with their taxes, an effort which put $14.8 million back into the local economy through refunds and credits, said Chandra Subramaniam, dean of the school’s David Nazarian College of Business and Economics. “It has a huge monetary impact,” Subramaniam told the Business Journal. The effort included 500 tax-trained and certified student volunteers, supported in part through grants from the Internal Revenue Service. “We had 22 separate sites – with the one at CSUN the largest – all the way from the West Valley to Glendale,” Subramaniam said. “For accounting students, this is experiential learning in the field of taxation. It allows a lot more students to understand how taxes impact people’s lives.”