We need help with our taxes

April 15 might not hold significance to you, but we bet your parents are aware of the day. The 15th is the last day, unless you or your parents file for an extension, to file taxes.

Since, according to the Oregon State Enrollment Summary for winter term 2013, 67 percent of undergraduates and 3.8 percent of graduate students are under the age of 25, many OSU students probably don’t file their own taxes.

If you’re under the age of 19, or you’re under the age of 24 and are a full-time student, your parents can claim you as a dependent. Thus, mommy and daddy are usually the ones to take care of our taxes. Well, children, even if your parents do this for you, it’s a good idea to learn from them how to do it yourself.

Eventually you will have to do them by yourself, but you may never learn how. As it is now, OSU does not offer a concrete method of learning to do or getting assistance with taxes. We have an issue with this.

Out of all the superfluous baccalaureate core courses, Oregon State does not offer a single class that would aid students in understanding taxes — how to file them or how to handle the Internal Revenue System. The only thing that might come close to such a class is an upper division course offered in the College of Business. Unfortunately, not just anyone can take the class.

We asked if students might find clarity and direction from ASOSU Legal Services’ attorneys — no luck. Apparently, giving advice or aiding in understanding the paperwork is outside offered services.

Once upon a time, workshops where students could bring in their documents and ask for assistance were held in the Valley Library, however, they no longer exist.

We’ve been at Oregon State for a while now, and sadly some of us still rely on our parents to take care of our taxes. Instead of floundering and learning from making rookie mistakes, we would like an opportunity to learn how to do it right the first time.

Instead of wasting our time — and money — on bacc core classes we only consider another hoop to jump through before walking away with a diploma, we’d like to see OSU implement classes that will actually aid us in the real world.

Don’t get us wrong: Not all bacc core are a complete waste of time or money. If we’re majoring in biology, then biology 102 might be a cool class. For us, it mostly came off as, “let’s look at squiggles under a microscope for an hour and a half.”

We’d like to see a revised version of bacc core courses to include relevance to our lives. Filing taxes, handling the IRS, knowing our rights as students and individuals, and knowing when Comcast is screwing us over are relevant to students looking to succeed in the real world. Instead of learning how to handle ourselves with real-world issues, it’s more of a trial-and-error, learn-as-you-go process.

Even if it’s a one-credit course that meets on Tuesday afternoon, we’d much prefer learning something valuable and applicable to future situations instead of realizing, once we’re out in the world, we didn’t acquire the necessary skills to be a functioning citizen.


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