WASHINGTON − The Internal Revenue Service is accepting applications for the Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) grant programs, which will allow some organizations to apply for annual funding for up to three years. 

Applications will be accepted through June 1, 2020, on grants.gov. The application packages and guidelines are available on the IRS website. For the 2020 filing season, the IRS awarded 27 TCE grantees $11 million and 238 VITA grantees $18 million. Last year, the two grant programs filed nearly 3 million returns at almost 9,000 sites nationwide.

The TCE program was established in 1978 to provide tax counseling and return preparation to persons age 60 or older and to give training and technical assistance to the volunteers who provide free federal income tax assistance within elderly communities across the nation. For more information on the TCE program visit the TCE webpage on IRS.gov.

The VITA Grant program was established in 2007 to supplement the VITA program, which was created in 1969. VITA provides underserved communities with free tax filing assistance. The grant program enables VITA partners to extend services to underserved populations in the hardest-to-reach urban and non-urban areas, to increase the capacity of targeted taxpayers to file returns electronically, to enhance training of volunteers and to maintain the high accuracy rate of returns prepared at VITA sites. For more information on the VITA Grant program, visit the VITA Grant webpage on IRS.gov.