It’s Tax Season: Sprott Students Run Community Tax Clinics for Carleton

As spring flowers bloom and Canada’s tax season deadline looms, students at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business stepped up to help fellow Carleton students and the Ottawa community file their taxes. In total, close to 100 students helped to file more than 400 tax returns.

The Sprott Tax Students’ Association (STSA) held its annual tax clinic from March 25-April 2 on campus to help individuals with their tax returns. The student-run tax clinic has existed at Carleton since 1996, and the STSA took over running it in 2022.

“It’s the opportunity for students to have access to free tax services. Tax can be a bit of a scary word for a lot of students—they’re A) scared of messing up or B) have no clue where to start. So, we kind of fill that gap of providing them assurance and actually file the return through our trained volunteers as well as the CPAs we have in partnership that help us with it,” said Matthew Roach, fifth year Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting student and president of the STSA.

“So that’s really why tax clinic and our club are so important. Just the work we do helping students file their returns, and getting some of those credits and benefits back to them that they can use to further their education.”

With an increase from 35 volunteers to 50 student volunteers, the campus tax clinic filed 302 tax returns—over double from 2023.  

New this year, Sprott students enrolled in second and third year taxation courses also participated in two community tax clinics. 

Students in professor Emily Gray’s Income Tax Fundamentals class and professor Naomi Fernando’s taxation class were trained on how to complete tax returns for members of the Ottawa community. On April 5, Emily’s students were at the Riverside United Church to run a tax clinic, and on April 10 Naomi’s students were at the Blackburn Hamlet Community Centre.

Thirty-three students participated in the tax clinic at the Riverside United Church and helped file 75 returns for community members. Forty tax returns were filed at the Blackburn Hamlet Community Centre tax clinic by 25 students.

During the clinics, students were supervised by professors and CPA tax professionals—allowing the students to gain real-world experience in a supportive and enriching learning environment.

“While I love that the students got to experience using the tax software and putting what they learned into practice, I think the real value came from practicing their soft skills, or what I call power skills: professionalism, communication, critical thinking, and problem solving,” said Emily, FCPA, FCA. “Because this was our first time out in the community, I was a little nervous—but at the end of the clinic, I was so proud of all of them. It went really well!”