To the casual eye, there’s nothing remarkable about the rooms where Meridith Owensby spent many spring Saturdays. She may have been inside a school one week, perhaps a senior center the next. What is remarkable is the way she used her time there: preparing taxes for a stream of people who filed through the doors as strangers, then became her clients, at no cost to them.
Owensby previously volunteered with United Way of Greater Cincinnati’s Free Tax Prep initiative. Now she finds joy in sharing the skills and tools she used at preparation sites around the area to help residents at a local shelter where she’s co-director. The shelter offers stable housing to women and children in crisis and transition. Owensby is grateful they can also offer them a chance to get the most out of their tax returns.
“For someone who made $10,000 last year to get a $5,000 return — that’s enormous,” said Owensby. “I don’t know that most of us can comprehend what it would be like to have our finances flow that way.” For many low-income families, the refund she calculates will be the most significant payment they’ll see in a year.
Owensby’s first experience with the U.S. tax system was as an undergraduate at Georgia Tech. She vividly recalls handing over $250 for a half-hour appointment with a paid preparer, only to learn she also owed the IRS $600. As a frugal college student, she was frustrated by the high hourly cost of a necessary task that, in her mind, seemed straightforward enough.
“I was intimidated by doing my own taxes,” Owensby said, “but after that experience, I thought, I’m going to figure this out.” She stuck to her vow to never again use a paid service for basic tax prep: gathering research materials from the library, learning any other tricks she could and completing her own returns.
After college, she saw an ad seeking tax preparers, which led her to the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, funded by the IRS and United Way. She got certified and set out to keep people with limited resources from having to pay for tax prep.
She really enjoys hearing how people intend to use their newfound funds. “It varies from the kind of graces and fun parts of life to the very concrete, like ‘I’m going to pay three months of rent because I’m going on maternity leave.’”
During the 2025 tax season, more than 500 IRS-certified United Way of Greater Cincinnati volunteers filed more than 9,100 returns for individuals and families, saving them $2.5 million in preparation fees and leading them to claim $10.3 million in refunds. They do everything within their power to ensure families get what they’re due, and don’t miss out on opportunities like the Earned Income Tax Credit or Child Tax Credit.
Owensby empowers clients, friends and family by sharing resources like MyFreeTaxes. Anyone making less than $84,000 annually can use the free online software available through United Way Worldwide to file federal and state tax returns. “I’ll get texts around tax time from people I haven’t heard from in years to say, ‘What was that website again?’” said Owensby. “So, I know they continue using it year after year.” To anyone interested in volunteering, she said it only costs time to give it a try. In addition to preparing returns, other volunteers are needed to greet clients and help with intake. “We could use a lot more people in the endeavor — the need is out there.”
For information about becoming a Free Tax Prep volunteer, email [email protected] or visit www.uwgc.org/taxvolunteer.
