New workshops make filing taxes easy
This year, VCH-Vancouver’s Consumer Initiative Fund (CIF) is working with Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Peer Navigators to offer tax workshops to people with lived mental health and/or substance use experience.
This is our first year offering tax workshops of this kind, an initiative made possible through a team effort including VCH, CIF, CMHA Peer Navigators, the Open Door Group and the Vancouver Public Library.
Filing taxes promptly is now a requirement of receiving provincial disability benefits, so we hope to help many people continue to receive their benefits. If this year is successful, we hope to continue the workshops in the future.
Tax workshops build capacity
The workshops will involve training people with lived experience and empower them to file their own taxes as a capacity-building exercise. Peer Navigators have a variety of experience doing taxes, but this is the first effort to facilitate people doing their own taxes.
Peer Navigators can’t offer tax advice, but they can offer guidance as to what forms to fill and where to enter the various numbers and other information. We are using SimpleTax.ca as the secure and simple website for people to file their taxes with.
The first session was rather quiet – 3 out of the 4 registered came and successfully filed their own taxes. However, there were quite a few people dropping by and inquiring, and who subsequently registered for workshops, so it appears there will be many more attending as word gets out. Subsequent sessions have had 8 people.
A couple of participants have commented: “Awesome. Now, I know how to file my taxes using Simple Tax. The Peer Navigators were great.” And another said: “It was really helpful. I could not have gotten it done without help. There were a lot of different tax deductions that I didn’t know about before.”
Two workshop locations
The workshops are not limited to people attending mental health teams or people on disability, the only requirement is for the person to have lived mental health and/or substance use experience. Please note that registration is required at both workshop locations (instructions below).
Open Door Group
300 – 30 East 6th Avenue, Vancouver
Every Wednesday in April 2016 at 3:30 pm
Vancouver Public Library (Central Branch)
Level 7 Computer Training Lab – 350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver
Monday, April 4, 2016 at 5 pm
Friday, April 15, 2016 at 2 pm
Clients must register by contacting the Peer Navigators at: 604-512-9874 or 604-512-8902 or by emailing: peer.navigator@cmha.bc.ca.
Special thanks
We’d like to send a shout out to CMHA’s Peer Navigators for being so wonderful to work with. Special thanks also go to the Vancouver Public Library and Open Door Group for providing computer labs for the workshops.
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