Lines, Numbers, and Grace: How Baylor Students Turn Tax Prep Into a Lifeline

Our 2025 VITA story begins, as most good stories do, with a touch of panic and a PDF.

When longtime faculty leader Tim Thomasson announced his retirement in fall of 2024 – and with it, his departure from Baylor’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program – I found myself holding the reins. Not ceremoniously. It felt more like someone tossed me the parachute after I’d already jumped out of the plane.

Fortunately, Don Carpenter – equal parts colleague, friend, and battlefield medic – stepped up to co-lead the mission. We committed to serve at three sites: University High School, La Vega High School and the Waco Public Library. Ambitious? Absolutely. Impossible? Only without an army.

Eighty Undergrads, Fifteen Grads, One Retired Faculty Member, and a God Who Shows Up

We needed 40 students to pull this off. We got 80. We needed a handful of graduate students to serve as reviewers. We got 15. What we didn’t get – at least not right away – were backup faculty. If I caught the flu or Don got hit by a bus, the whole thing risked collapse. But then, in classic third-act timing, the legendary Bill Thomas came out of retirement to join the team. Grace, it turns out, shows up wearing reading glasses and carrying a tax code binder.

Between the final exam in December and the first awkward “Welcome back!” in January, nearly 100 students – most of them running on caffeine and adrenaline – completed every IRS training module the federal government could throw at them. They passed the exams. Checked the boxes. Then came the logistics. We scheduled staff for three sites across four days a week – balancing class schedules, job shifts, SING and the occasional Baylor basketball game. It wasn’t just scheduling. It was choreography with spreadsheets.

A Different Kind of Classroom

From late January through early April, while most of campus was curled up with textbooks and Netflix, our students were standing at folding tables, armed with PC, IRS publications and a genuine desire to help. They wore nametags. They looked nervous. They got to work.

Week one was a soft open. No press. No ribbon-cutting. Just a single mother who worked at Amazon, couldn’t afford health insurance, and walked out with a meaningful refund – and a financial reset. That same week, a retired couple came in, shivering in worn jackets. They left with a completed tax return and something rarer: dignity.

These were not accounting problems. They were human stories – and our students were learning how to listen.

We prayed – quietly, earnestly – that our students would stay healthy, speak wisely and serve humbly. Sometimes the prayers came with homemade meals dropped off by generous faculty and community members. Sometimes they came with nothing more than presence. Either way, the message was the same: Show up. Stand in the gap. Serve.

The Gospel According to Form 1040

There’s no award ceremony for explaining the Earned Income Tax Credit or navigating a third-hand W-2 from someone’s forgotten gig job. There’s no applause for helping a first-time filer understand that a $600 1099 from DoorDash can wreck their refund. This work is not glamorous. But it matters. Deeply.

One night, a widower walked in. His wife had always done the taxes. This was his first year alone. One of our students sat with him for nearly an hour – line by line, form by form, explaining each piece with the kind of gentleness you don’t teach in a classroom. That’s not training. That’s compassion.

Another evening, a woman arrived – shaking, hopeless. Her mortgage had just jumped $500 per month. She had no income. She’d cashed out her retirement savings to buy food and heat her home. She didn’t know why she’d come. But she had – because maybe, just maybe, something would be different.

And it was. Taxes had been withheld from her early distribution. When the return was finalized, she was due a $5,000 refund. She wept. We prayed. And for a moment, she could breathe.

It’s Not Just Numbers

Of course, not every night ends in a cinematic breakthrough.

Some nights, the line outside is long, the weather is cold, and we have to turn people away. Some nights, volunteers get sick. Internet crashes. The forms don’t load. The math doesn’t work. The refund is smaller than expected – or gone entirely. Some nights are just hard.

We’ve helped clients who are blind, deaf, disabled or facing mental health crises. Some had no transportation home. Others were visibly afraid – of the process, of the outcome, of being judged.

We’ve had students – bright, capable students – step outside just to catch their breath after hearing stories that weighed heavier than any textbook they’d ever read.

And yet, our students kept coming back.

Because somewhere between IRS Pub 4012 and Luke 10:37, they’ve realized this isn’t just tax prep – it’s crisis management. It’s hope delivery. It’s ministry in Excel format.

The Kindness You Don’t See

On a typical night, I was juggling Wi-Fi issues, printer paper, and explaining why "married filing separately" is rarely a good idea when I notice a student is missing. I assumed they ducked out early to study for Intermediate Accounting. Ten minutes later, I found out they used their own money to call an Uber for a client who couldn’t get home safely.

No fanfare. No announcement. Just quiet kindness.

There’s Moses L., our only 100 percent volunteer – first-semester international student, no course credit, no requirement – who showed up early, stayed late, and carried himself with grace, humility and focus.

Or Lauren, who helped a widow file her taxes, and then – when the return was done – prayed with her. Not because it was part of the curriculum, but because it was what the moment needed.

What We’ve Learned

There are lessons you don’t get from a textbook.

You don’t learn how to tell a father that his refund disappeared due to an IRS error from years ago. There’s no case study about what to say when a client’s $17,000 refund was stolen by a fraudulent preparer operating out of a hotel in Idaho.

There’s no lecture on how to balance celebration and heartbreak when one client breaks into grateful tears over a surprise refund while the next, sitting just ten feet away, begs you to help lower a crushing tax bill.

But our students are learning anyway.

They’re learning that tax law is complicated, but people are even more so. That service requires sacrifice – of time, comfort and sometimes composure. That showing up matters. That sometimes, grace arrives disguised as a spreadsheet and a smile.

Why It Matters

I’m a professor of accounting. I believe in journal entries, audit standards and double-entry bookkeeping. But VITA has taught me something far beyond the balance sheet.

Grace doesn’t balance. It just shows up.

It shows up in warm meals, whispered prayers, and the unglamorous courage to tell someone, “You’re not alone. We’re going to figure this out.”

Every night, our students are becoming professionals. But more than that, they’re becoming people who understand the weight of compassion and the power of presence.

And that’s the kind of education that most truly need.

The Next Mountain

As we shut down laptops and pack away intake forms, we’re already looking ahead.

Because despite everything we accomplished – every return filed, every refund delivered – we still had to turn away students who wanted to serve. Not for lack of passion, but for lack of capacity. And beyond the walls of our three sites are thousands in the community still waiting for help.

Meanwhile, our partners – the community organizations who make this possible – are facing serious funding challenges.

We can’t fix this with optimism alone. We need the full strength of our Baylor Accounting family. Every gift to the Excellence Fund for VITA Program Advancement isn’t just a donation – it’s an investment. It puts students in seats, laptops on tables and refunds in the hands of people who need them most.

We’ve seen what happens when this program runs at full capacity.

Now imagine what we could do if it was fully powered.