By Simon Eskow

Sheldon Barasch recently recalled the seminal moment in 1969 when he and Jeff Gold saw a need among the working poor in New York City who, for various reasons, wouldn’t file a tax return, even if they were owed money.

“What we saw out there was H&R Block and nothing else,” Barasch said. “There were people who didn’t file: they’d have a refund coming to them, but they didn’t do anything to get it. Our feeling was, we wanted people to comply with the law, and there should be a mechanism for them to file other than going to a filing service or to the Internal Revenue Service.”

There was, in short, a kind of low-income taxpayer who couldn’t afford a private service, and who didn’t trust the IRS. For instance, some low-income filers have been illegal immigrants who worried that their contact with government agencies would result in their deportation. So, Barasch and Gold, who worked in the same New York law firm, decided to catch the nonfilers who might otherwise slip through the cracks with Community Tax Aid, a not-for-profit, free service that has slowly and quietly expanded over the last 34 years.

The duo became a pair of Johnny Appleseeds, spreading the work to attorneys and CPAs in the five boroughs, and expanding to Boston, Detroit and Washington, D.C., among other cities, in loosely affiliated organizations using the same name.

“We felt CPAs should be involved with that because of our training,” Barsasch, an attorney and a CPA, said. “We have the ability to do that, so why not use it for something other than corporate tax matters when we can help people comply with the law and get some money back (from the IRS).”

Community Tax Aid recruited help, sought donations and found local organizations through which they could operate their free tax services in the field. This year, the New York Community Tax Aid boasts 132 regular volunteers—21 of them CPAs—who work through 11 community-based organizations, retirement homes and the office of New York state Assemblyman Jeff Aubry.

Volunteers—who take a one-day training session at the New York State Society of CPAs’ headquarters or Hunter College—disperse through the program’s 11 sites to serve an annual clientele of 1,200 to 1,500 taxpayers. The volunteers work at the sites in various weeknight and weekend sessions from Feb. 15 to April 15. Community Tax Aid issues fliers to former clients, while new clients are brought in by word of mouth. The entire program, which is run by a 15-member board of directors, costs about $3,000 a year to operate.

CPAs who volunteer earn seven CPE credits for sitting through basic training and completing eight hours in the field, according to Community Tax Aid President Emil Gomez. Advanced volunteers or site managers get three credits. The organization has offered CPE since 1989 through the Society’s Foundation for Accounting Education.

Gomez, who has been with Community Tax Aid for 25 years, said it was Gold who encouraged him to volunteer when Gomez heard Gold speak at Baruch College.

“I was a student back then, and it sounded like a lot of fun to apply what I learned in class to a real-life situation,” Gomez said. “It was nice to be able to help people while doing it.”

For more information on volunteering or about the program itself, go to groups.msn.com/ctanyc/wecomepage.msnw or send an e-mail to ctanyc@myrealbox.com.

Donations also can be sent to Community Tax Aid, P.O. Box 1040, Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025.