If math and government forms make your eyes go fuzzy, call on Total Action Against Poverty. They'll do your taxes.

The Roanoke community action agency offers a free tax assistance clinic for families who earn less than $49,000 a year. The program is one of many support services in the Roanoke region that help people wade through filing local, state and federal returns ahead of the April 15 filing deadline.

"Our goal is to not have people pay for tax prep," said Teffany Henderson, the service's site coordinator and TAP's financial services assistant director. Free tax prep helps people "hold onto every dollar they can," she added.

The program, funded by the Internal Revenue Service's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program and the Virginia Community Action Partnership, helped about 600 families last year, and Henderson hopes it will serve 1,000 this year, she said.

Ashok Jain, 58, of Roanoke County has volunteered for about seven years in the program, taking appointments on Saturdays and filing taxes for the same clients year after year.

"It's very gratifying to see the smiles on their faces," Jain said. "These people can never imagine the kind of refund you get in this program."

Jain is not an accountant, but financial matters interest the TM GE Automation Systems engineer.

He now coordinates a group of 15 tax-prep volunteers who are GE or TM GE employees. The program uses 25 volunteers who have been trained and tested by the IRS.

This year, pairs of volunteers will screen taxpayers and file their forms online in recently vacated offices at 302 Second St. in downtown Roanoke.

"A lot of people are scared to do their own taxes," Henderson said. "You might not know tax law. At least here, you can be assured the taxes will be done correctly."

Costs can pile up form by form at accounting firms such as H & R Block or Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. H & R Block's prices for personal tax preparation vary from $39 to more than $300.

Ellis Wimmer, general manager of nine Jackson Hewitt locations in the Roanoke Valley, directs a handful of the people who visit his offices for assistance every spring to TAP. If their taxes aren't complicated or their household is low-income, it's not useful for them to pay $39 to $150 to see a certified public accountant at Jackson Hewitt, he said.

"We're in a service-oriented business, and that's one way we give back to the community," Wimmer said. "We need to take care of the customers whether we make money or not."