Texas A&M University School of Law has received a grant from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to start a Low Income Taxpayer Clinic.
The grant is part of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinics (LITC) program, administered by the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate at the IRS to make the services of these clinics more widely available, particularly in underserved areas.
This will help the school assist low income taxpayers on tax controversies, which include audits, assessments, collections and disputes before the IRS and U.S. Tax Court.
The clinic also gives students an opportunity to work directly on federal tax controversy cases by receiving provisional admission to represent taxpayers before the IRS.
Jack Manhire, Director of Program Development and Senior Lecturer, will serve as the clinic interim director. Before coming to the law school, he served as Chief of Legal Analysis for the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility and was an Attorney Advisor to the National Taxpayer Advocate.
Lori Rogde, Associate Director for Clinics at Texas A&M Law, was instrumental in this grant award.
“If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have the grant,” Manhire said.
Rodge saw the grant as a “great chance” to learn something new, and was glad the law school received it to benefit the community.
Manhire hopes the clinic can take advantage of cutting edge technology and the Aggie Network to expand beyond Fort Worth in the upcoming years.
“We are very excited to be a part of the LITC community,” he said. “We are fully dedicated to serving the needs of the Fort Worth area and the educational enrichment of our students. We also plan to leverage cutting-edge technology and our Aggie network to represent taxpayers in some of the most underserved communities in Texas.”
The clinic, the law school’s ninth, will be located in the Star-Telegram building in downtown Fort Worth, the home of Texas A&M Legal Clinics.
- Article by Jennifer Nassar, Communications Specialist, Texas A&M University School of Law