The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today released its sixth annual review of the IRS's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and Tax Counseling for the Elderly programs (Ensuring the Quality Assurance Processes Are Consistently Followed Remains a Significant Challenge for the Volunteer Program (2009-40-128)):

The volunteer programs provide no-cost Federal tax return preparation and electronic filing services to low and moderate-income taxpayers, the elderly, the disabled and those who have limited English proficiency.

TIGTA auditors anonymously visited volunteer sites around the country to test the accuracy of tax returns prepared by volunteers. TIGTA found that the accuracy rate of tax returns prepared during the 2009 filing season by volunteers trained by the IRS was lower than last year's accuracy rate. While 59% of the tax returns prepared for TIGTA by volunteers were accurately prepared, 41% were prepared inaccurately.