Disconnecting to Connect
Lynn Petrovich, CPA, has worked for clients on both sides of the track — for the highest-paid private wealth manager to the low-income individual who hasn’t filed a tax return in years. To Petrovich, who resides in Monmouth County, tax help should not come in one package.
After working for several years as project controller at Tutor Perini, a specialty construction company in New York, she realized in her free time she could help the needy in her own backyard. Along with her daughter Katrina, an attorney, she became a volunteer for AARP Foundation Tax-Aide, a free tax program aimed at low-income and senior citizens who cannot afford tax preparation services. It was here that she discovered a void in the lower-income communities that CPAs like herself could fill. “Five or six years into being licensed I felt disconnected from society. What I was seeing in corporate accounting was not what I was seeing in the community where I lived,” says Petrovich.
Branching Out
In 2016, Lynn and her daughter, seeing the need for year-round tax services (including preparation of amended and prior year returns) and helping taxpayers with IRS notices, founded People’s Tax Clinic (PTC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that helps low-income individuals with their financial needs, including basic legal document preparation like wills, health care directives and powers of attorney. It was an ideal way to reach out to those who need help the most. Though she still has her day job, it reassures her to know that she is doing her part for society. “My expertise was greatly needed elsewhere. It was rewarding to me. It’s a way to move forward for the benefit of society.”
At PTC, most clients will not pay a fee for services. For others, there are nominal fees based on a sliding income scale. So far, People’s Tax Clinic has helped about 50 individuals, which is work that is in addition to Lynn and her daughter’s service as tax season volunteers at AARP. “We’re doing returns for people who were formerly incarcerated, living in their cars, facing foreclosure, fighting cancer, people who have to pay $600 in health care penalties even though they make only $19,000 a year, etc.,” she explains.
Lynn would love to see the organization reach out to more communities with the help of charitable donations, corporate grants for funding and the hiring of volunteers, but she is first focusing on New Jersey. “If someone called us and needed help over a notice from the government, it’s certainly not something we would turn down,” she adds. “If they needed help in Georgia, we would network and try and find someone in Georgia who could help.”
Low-income and elderly people are not the only ones who benefit from her desire to reach out to the less fortunate. Petrovich can also be seen regularly speaking pro bono at high schools in Monmouth and Ocean counties about the perils of student loan debt (her seminar is called “Everything you need to know about student loan debt, before, during, and after college”). Students, she notes, are in dire need of education about what having too much student loan debt can mean for one’s future.
Helping those young adults who do not have access to financing hits home with her own upbringing. As a student, she did not have many places to turn for advice, but her love of accounting and the profession prevailed. "I always enjoyed math and accounting when I went to college part-time at night. I started taking classes at Brookdale Community College. I then transferred to Monmouth College. Once I got into a couple of accounting classes I was hooked," she says.