Student associations · campus groups · first-time filers · families
Free workshops for student organisations, free plain-English guidance for first-time filers, and honest help for the family member who has been quietly worrying about it for years.
These come up in nearly every first conversation. Here is our honest answer to each.
It is not too late and it is not complicated — it is only unfamiliar. Most student returns take under an hour to understand for life. We will walk you through it once, free, and you will never need to ask again.
A missed year with no tax owing is usually a much smaller problem than people fear, and it is nearly always fixable. It gets worse only by being left. Ask us and find out what it actually is.
That is the most common version of this conversation. If it would help, we will look at their last return for free and tell them honestly whether anything was missed. No obligation either way.
A list you can hand to your partner, your CFO or your spouse without translating it first.
We do not sell anything at a workshop, we do not collect contact details from attendees, and we do not use a campus or a religious space as a sales floor. If a student wants help afterwards, they can find us here. That is the whole arrangement.
What we put in writing
The tax planning fee is 40% of the tax actually saved, billed by ARPP LLC and paid out of money that was otherwise going to the Treasury. If the saving does not happen, there is nothing to pay. Tax return preparation is billed separately by Barr Advanced Tax Solutions under its own fee schedule.
For clients with $500,000 or more of income, we guarantee to identify at least $10,000 in tax reduction beyond what your current CPA, EA or tax attorney has already found. If we do not, Barr Advanced Tax Solutions prepares your individual federal returns at no charge for the next three years — a stated value of up to $22,500. Eligibility conditions apply and are published in full on our Terms & Guarantees page.
We do not use anything we would not want to explain to an examiner. Each position we take rests on the Internal Revenue Code, the regulations, or settled authority — not on an aggressive reading of a grey area and a hope that nobody looks.
Should any planning we put in place come under scrutiny, we stand behind it and defend the position at no cost to you, for as long as that position is open. You are not handed a strategy and then left alone with it.
Free tool · nothing to sign up for
Most students who ask us this do not need to file at all, and several who do not ask should have. Two questions will tell you which you are.
Your answer will appear here. Nothing is sent to us and nothing is stored.
Nothing you type here leaves your browser. There is no email box, no sign-up and no tracking on this tool — the answer is worked out on your own machine and we never see it. Uses the 2025 standard deduction — $15,750 single, $31,500 married filing jointly, $23,625 head of household (IRS). If somebody can claim you as a dependent, your standard deduction is the greater of $1,350 or your earned income plus $450, capped at $15,750 (IRS Publication 501). Filing when you are not required to is often still worth it if tax was withheld.
Send us last year's return. Within ten business days we send back one page telling you what we found — and if we find nothing, we will say so plainly. No charge, no obligation, no card.
What a W-2 actually is, whether you need to file at all, what a 1098-T does to your refund, and the three mistakes that cost first-time filers money every year.
One email, the document attached, and nothing else unless you ask. You can tell us to stop at any time.
Workshops and first-return guidance for students are free. There is no version of this where a student is charged for a conversation.
If a student does need a return prepared, a straightforward one is $100, plus only the state filing fee our software charges.
Family members are welcome to a free second look at their last return, whatever their situation.