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Tax Clinic Students Present at State Legal Aid Conference

taxstudents-800x533 Tax Clinic Students Present at State Legal Aid ConferenceTax Clinic Students Javier Puga, Roland Hartung and Gabrielle Ongies

Washington and Lee law students Gabrielle Ongies, Roland Hartung, and Javier Puga, all student attorneys in the W&L Law Tax Clinic, presented on a panel at the Annual Statewide Legal Aid Conference in Charlottesville in October.  The event was a three-day training and CLE hosted by the Virginia Poverty Law Center.

The students were part of a panel titled “Your Client Gets an Earned Income Tax Credit Refund or Personal Injury Settlement: What You Need to Know.”  Each of the students chose a topic that was related to a client matter they’ve worked on this semester in the Tax Clinic.

Hartung spoke on the taxation of settlement awards, with specific tips for drafting complaints and settlement agreements.  Ongies spoke about the taxation of cancellation of debt income and gave practical tips for taxpayers who receive a Form 1099-C. Puga described the process for making injured spouse allocation requests, which is the process to protect part of a joint refund from being applied entirely to a past-due obligation of only one spouse.

The audience for the panel was legal aid lawyers who are not tax law specialists.