While other college students flocked to tropical beaches for spring break, Ithaca College accounting majors headed for the tundra. IC seniors Charles Badurski, Olivia Chitete, Kristen Boentgen, and Joanne Huddle, accompanied by faculty members Alan Cohen and Warren Schlesinger, served as program partners with the Alaska Business Development Center's Volunteer Tax and Loan Program.

Unlike the IRS's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites, such as the one at Ithaca College run by IC students, the Volunteer Tax and Loan Program sends volunteers to remote Native Alaskan villages to provide individuals with tax-filing assistance. That's because the primary occupation of Native Alaskan residents is commercial fishing, which requires a commercial license that, in turn, requires applicants to submit their previous year's tax returns. Therefore, tax-return assistance plays a vital role in Alaska's local economies.

	Accounting students with Warren Schlesinger and Alan Cohen, VITA program director Alaska transportation

Professor Schlesinger, two students, and the director of the Alaska Business Development Center met in Anchorage, where they boarded a small airplane bound for Kodiak Island. For the next five days the group traveled to the villages of Ouzinkie, Port Lions, Old Harbor, and Lawson Bay, where they prepared 125 individual tax returns for the residents.

Besides its commercial fishing operations, Kodiak Island is a popular destination for recreational hunters and vacationers seeking good fishing. Tourism revenue, therefore, has supported the construction of a number of comfortable lodges, which served as accommodations for Schlesinger and his team.

Less fortunate with their housing arrangements was Professor Cohen's group, which flew from Anchorage to the Yukon delta to serve the residents of very small, very poor Native Alaskan villages. Cohen and two students were joined by a senior IRS tax-advocate supervisor. The group traveled by small plane to the villages of Emmonak, Kotlik, and Alakanuk, which have populations of between 400 and 600. Travel between the airstrips and the villages was by sleds pulled by "snow machines" (snowmobiles) -- at times when the outside temperature was -20° F. The team's living accommodations were Spartan. Nonetheless, they filed 347 tax returns and assisted residents in qualifying for their earned-income tax credits.

In all, the volunteers completed 472 tax returns at no cost to the individual taxpayers. The market value of the services rendered to Alaska residents by the IC teams is estimated to be approximately $90,000. In return for their services, IC students were given the rare opportunity to travel to "bush" Alaska and to meet villagers whose lives are different from anything the students have ever known.