SIMI VALLEY : Volunteers Help to File Tax Returns

About 30 retired volunteers will spend their weekdays until April laboring over forms and numbers to help other senior citizens complete the “necessary nuisance” of filing income tax returns.

“If every congressman had to do their own, they’d make this thing a lot simpler,” volunteer Jim Gobble, 67, said as he gestured toward the form. “Some older people get very distressed.”

Sanctioned by the Internal Revenue Service and the state Franchise Tax Board, the program is offered free to senior citizens in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. Individuals who earn less than $25,000 a year and couples who together earn less than $32,000 also qualify.

Volunteers are trained by the IRS and assisted, when necessary, by program coordinator Norm Glowienke, a former accountant.

“We do save the community a lot of money,” Glowienke said, adding that he expects that the program will assist at least 800 people this year.

In Simi Valley, volunteers will assist taxpayers by appointment from 9 a.m. to noon Mondays and Wednesdays at the Simi Valley Senior Center and on a walk-in basis from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays at the Simi Valley Library.

In Thousand Oaks, they will be available from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays at the Human Services Center, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursdays at the Goebel Senior Center and from 9 a.m. to noon Fridays at the Thousand Oaks Library. All Thousand Oaks clinics are for walk-ins.

“It’s not something you do because you like it,” said Lewis Gobble, a retired engineer who decided to help out after some encouragement from his brother Jim. “It’s something you do because it’s your civic responsibility.”