The Brief

Now through April 9, about five dozen Cal State Long Beach students will provide free income tax preparation.

Clients have the option of getting support in person or online. Some prefer to sit alongside student volunteers as they make their way through their paperwork. Other clients drop off their documents, then come back for their returns after class.

The service is open to people who earned $67,000 or less in 2024, and geared at students, people over 65, nonresidents and people with limited English proficiency.

Though the students are volunteers, this operation is far from beginner, said Sudha Krishnan, the accountancy department chair and faculty supervisor. “These guys have to be experts,” she said.

Cal State Long Beach’s IRS-administered Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program requires students to undergo multiple days of training. They’re also required to pass at least four exams.

Due to their training, Krishnan said, the volunteers are well-versed in the types of deductions that might be available to students and other clients.

“They know the right questions to ask,” she said.

Because the campus is very diverse, she added, students are able to provide support in multiple languages, including Hindi, Khmer, Mandarin, Spanish and Tagalog.

How does the program keep my tax information safe?

Marvin Madamba, a senior accounting major, volunteered with VITA last year and helped file about 40 tax returns. This year, he’s back as a co-coordinator — a volunteer with prior knowledge who helps ensure everything on the tax forms is up to snuff. Every shift has 2 to 4 coordinators.

During the review process, “we go from the top to bottom,” Madamba added. “Our role is to reduce the amount of time a client has to spend filing taxes. We don't want them to come back.”

Sara Nava, a first-time volunteer, has helped more than 20 people file their tax returns this season.

When Nava completed the first return, she was a bit nervous. “I didn't want to get anything incorrect,” she said.

Nava appreciates having experienced reviewers on site and was pleased to report that the vast majority of her clients are getting refunds.

“Some of them are surprised that their refunds are so high,” Nava said. “But we always make sure the refund is correct. [The co-coordinators] verify our work. We don't just complete the return and move on.”

The VITA program is located in the computer lab of Cal State Long Beach's College of Business.

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Julia Barajas

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LAist

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To keep personal data secure, volunteers are barred from preparing returns on their personal laptops.

“We provide Chromebooks, and we have computers in the lab. And those are the only two places where they can file the returns,” Krishnan said.

Every night, all returns are automatically deleted from those computers. The volunteers also shred copies of any documents.

Every tax season, she added, an IRS liaison audits the site.

How the program helps students make decisions about their future 

The student volunteers partake in VITA as part of a course that helps them work toward completing the required hours to become a Certified Public Accountant.

Through this experiential learning, Krishnan said, students also develop soft skills — such as how to tactfully deliver bad news when a refund is less than expected.

Doris Huang, a co-coordinator who graduates in May, said the hands-on part of the course was more fulfilling than most other lecture-based classes.

Currently, she helps prepare at least 30 returns per week. That number is likely to skyrocket in the coming days, she said, as the traditional April 15 deadline approaches. (People who live or have a business in L.A. County have until Oct. 15 to file their tax returns due to the recent wildfires.)

Huang said she and the volunteers see a good mix of clients, including recent alumni who had a positive experience with VITA when they were undergrads. Clients are encouraged to make an appointment, but the program also welcomes walk-ins. She and the other volunteers complete most tax returns in under two hours.

“A big question for students is always: ‘Do you want to go into tax or audit accounting?’” Madamba said. “The VITA experience made the decision clear for me.”

“I've never seen a student go: ‘I don't mind taxes,’” Krishnan said. “They either decide they really love taxes, or they hate them.”

LACMA’s first Van Gogh isn’t a painting of blue flowers, golden wheat fields or aged faces. It’s of a parked stagecoach, and it’s considered a good example of what made the Dutch painter, and the Impressionist movement he was a part of, so revolutionary.

The painting is called “Tarascon Stagecoach.” It was painted in 1888 and was donated to LACMA earlier this year by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.

It’s LACMA’s first Van Gogh painting, and the encyclopedic museum will be showing it off starting Sunday in a show called “Collecting Impressionism at LACMA” that focuses on 100 works from LACMA’s collection. The works are arranged chronologically to show the evolving tastes that have shaped the museum's collection of Impressionist art.

The museum’s acquisition isn’t just a win for the museum. The museum-going public and the region’s teenage and college-age students also will benefit.

“I very much remember seeing Van Gogh in a rotunda space in the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] and finding it to be just so striking because of these luscious, bright colors,” said Summer Sloane-Britt, who saw her first Van Goh during a middle school visit to the museum.

Sloane-Britt now is a professor of art and art history at Occidental College.

“Visual analysis and seeing objects in person is always so core to historical learning and for studio artists as well,” Sloane-Britt said.

And seeing a Van Gogh in person, Sloane-Britt said, and saying you don’t like it is also OK because that signals the work has led you to identify and assert your own aesthetic tastes in art.

Van Gogh road trip in LA. Shotgun!

The LACMA exhibit presents a good opportunity to get on the road for a four-stop Van Gogh road trip without leaving L.A. County.

Van Gogh's "Irises"

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Courtesy Getty Museum

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You can start at LACMA and see “Tarascon Stagecoach,” benefiting from the context of seeing other impressionist works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries.

Hop over to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, where you’ll see “Hospital at Saint-Rémy,” one of three paintings by Van Gogh in the collection.

Then head west on Wilshire Boulevard to the Getty to see “Irises,” one of the paintings that’s made Van Gogh an art star.

"The Mulberry Tree," a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, on display at the Norton Simon Museum

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Courtesy Norton Simon Museum

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End your Van Gogh road trip by heading east to Pasadena to the Norton Simon Museum. The museum’s smaller, more intimate setting is a good place to see the museum’s six, yes six, Van Gogh paintings.

The exhibit also will feature the newly acquired work "The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil" by Claude Monet.

The new year doesn’t just bring new gifts and new resolutions. It also brings new laws.

State and local lawmakers have a lot on tap for 2026 when it comes to housing laws that will affect Southern California renters and landlords.

From refrigerators to fire damage, from development streamlining to rent control caps, LAist has rounded up the legal changes coming next year that you need to know.

AB 628: No more ‘no fridge’ apartment listings

Starting Jan. 1, landlords must provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove. Many landlords already offer these appliances, but the L.A. area stands out nationwide for having an unusually high proportion of fridge-less apartments.

Next year, L.A. newcomers will no longer be taking to social media to express incredulity at all the city’s bring-your-own-fridge apartments. If landlords fail to provide refrigerators or stoves in good working condition, apartments will be considered uninhabitable under the new law.

SB 610: Landlords must clean smoke damage

In the weeks and months after the January fires, many renters struggled to get their landlords to address toxic ash that blew into apartments and rental homes that remained standing. Some landlords said cleaning up the smoke damage was not their responsibility. Initial communication from local public officials was confusing on what tenants were supposed to do.

This new law, which partially was driven by LAist’s reporting, clarifies that in the wake of a natural disaster, “it shall be the duty of a landlord” to remove “hazards arising from the disaster, including, but not limited to, the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage.”

SB 79: Upzoning LA neighborhoods near transit

L.A.’s City Council voted to oppose it. Mayor Karen Bass asked the governor to veto it. But California’s big new upzoning law passed anyway. Its changes are set to take effect July 1, 2026.

Under the law, new apartment buildings up to nine stories tall will be allowed next to rail stations, and buildings up to five stories tall will be allowed within a half-mile of rapid bus stops. This upzoning applies to neighborhoods within those transit zones, even if they’re currently zoned only for single-family homes.

Next comes the implementation. The law could give renters more options once new housing is constructed. But L.A. could choose to delay the law’s effects in some areas for years. Ahead of the law’s passage, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto sent legislators a letter opposing the bill, signaling what could turn into a legal showdown over the bill.

AB 246: Protecting Social Security recipients during government shutdowns

Tenants can face eviction three days after missing their rent. During this year’s federal government shutdown — the longest on record — that swift timeline was a cause for anxiety among tenants who count on federal benefits to cover their rent.

Though this year’s shutdown did not affect regular Social Security payments, this law will give Social Security recipients a defense in eviction court if they ever stop receiving benefits because of any future shutdowns. Under the law, renters will be required to repay their missed rent, or enter a repayment plan, within two weeks of their Social Security payments being restored.

Lower rent control caps in the city of LA

After years of debate, the L.A. City Council passed a new cap on annual rent hikes in the roughly three-quarters of city apartments covered by local rent control rules.

The City Council enacted a new 4% limit, replacing a 40-year-old formula that allowed increases as high as 10% in some units during periods of high inflation. Councilmembers also ended a 2% additional increase for landlords who cover tenants’ gas and electricity costs.

The city had a nearly four-year rent freeze in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that ended in February 2024. That means many L.A. tenants are scheduled to receive their next rent hike Feb. 1, 2026. They should be getting a 30-day notice soon. Each year’s limit is determined by recent inflation data. The current cap of 3% is set to last until June 30.