Ashley Phillips loves accounting, but it’s always been the people behind the numbers that she finds fascinating.
Phillips, assistant professor of accounting at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, was chosen Oct. 1 as the United Way of Central Arkansas Volunteer of the Year.
“It’s a huge honor,” Phillips said.
She said the award was mainly for her work helping with the free tax returns offered through the United Way of Central
Arkansas’ Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program, or VITA. Phillips made it a service-learning project for her students, and some of them received college credit for their work.
And she gives her students the credit for her award.
“It’s a reflection of the fantastic accounting students we have at UCA and their commitment to the local community, as well as the accounting department here at UCA being supportive of us and the College of Business and allowing us the time to do that,” Phillips said.
She said the VITA program allows people whose income is less than $55,000 — “and that’s a large percentage of the population in the counties served by United Way of Central Arkansas,” she said — to get tax returns prepared for free.
The United Way of Central Arkansas covers Faulkner, Perry and Van Buren counties, and Conway County was added this month, said Maret Cahill Wicks, executive director of the United Way of Central Arkansas.
Professionals who volunteer to file returns for the United Way’s program include former certified public accountants, and one of those is Phillips’ mother, Barbara Money.
Phillips, who is a tax attorney and previously worked for the IRS, said she was happy to give her students real-world experience rather than just handing out a sheet of paper in the classroom for them to use as their basis to practice preparing tax returns. The students prepared the returns; Phillips and other professionals reviewed them.
Wicks said the executive board was given four or five names of volunteers “who have been extraordinary the previous year,” and Phillips was chosen.
“Ashley was amazing,” Wicks said.
In addition to organizing the students to participate in the VITA program, Phillips was involved in the free tax preparation for the College Square retirement community, Wicks said.
Phillips is also a member of the United Way’s Financial Empowerment Committee, “to make sure we are always looking for new and meaningful programs for the financial stability for our residents,” Wicks said. “We could not do it without her.”
Phillips, who grew up in Conway, said her mother was her inspiration to go into accounting. Phillips earned her undergraduate accounting degree at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, as well as her law degree.
“I just wanted to practice. … I think I thought I would practice at a law firm; I knew I wanted to do tax law,” she said. “I enjoyed those classes as an undergrad; I had some really great instructors, and also in law school.
Phillips moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and worked for two large CPA firms, she said, including Deloitte. Not one to coast on her successes, she moved to Florida and earned a master’s degree in tax law from the University of Florida in 2004.
“It was awesome,” she said. “I was about an hour and 20 minutes from the beach.”
Her next move was to another city where it’s easy to be entertained — Nashville, Tennessee. She worked for Adams and Reese law firm.
“‘I loved it; I lived in Nashville for 10 years,” she said. “It was odd; you would just see famous people when you would go to a hockey game — the Nashville Predators. Occasionally, you would see somebody at Target or wherever.”
Phillips recalled that country-music star Vince Gill sat in front of her at a hockey game once, and she also saw singer Carrie Underwood at a game.
“I just remember being in Target, and it was one of the members of Rascal Flatts. I met Tim McGraw and Faith Hill [in a professional setting]. They’re very nice, very down to earth,” Phillips said.
She met all types of personalities at Adams and Reese, too.
“We worked on, primarily, high-net-worth families that had large, closely held businesses, so we did their personal planning and their tax planning for their businesses,” she said.
“It was challenging. The hours were really long, but these were some fascinating people,” Phillips said. “They were from a variety of backgrounds. Some of them were self-made. It was incredible to talk to them and find out their history. Some of them, the wealth had been handed down for generations, and they came at it with a different perspective.
“There were a wide variety of personalities. … For the most part, these were some people who were incredibly generous, and they gave back to the community. One of my favorites was, they didn’t have any children, and they had an incredible amount of wealth. When they passed away, it was all going to charitable organizations.”
She also had a client who willed “a lot of money to a pet.”
After about five years working for that firm, Phillips said, she was ready for another adventure. She became an attorney for the IRS in the Office of Chief Council in Nashville.
“We represented the IRS in tax court in audits of taxpayers. It’s fascinating, because I have seen both sides of the matter,” she said. “Having worked in private practice, you have one perception of tax service. [IRS employees are] really incredible, smart people, and they are doing their jobs. I learned a lot.”
After five years with the IRS, Phillips and her husband, Ray, moved back to Arkansas, where she went to work for about 18 months for Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull in Little Rock until the UCA job became available. She started teaching in August 2016.
“I’d always thought teaching would be a great option, and I’d always thought I’d enjoy it. It’s very rewarding. The ability to teach tax and have a little bit of flexibility was very important to me,” Phillips said, especially as the mother of a 4-year-old daughter.
Phillips also serves as treasurer of the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas Board of Directors in Conway. She joined October 2017 when the nonprofit organization was between directors.
“It is a fantastic organization, and they do work that’s not glorified, and at the time, they needed somebody with a financial background on their board.”
She said her mother had volunteered to do bookkeeping with the women’s shelter, so she was familiar with it.
As treasurer, she makes sure “we’re being accountable,” she said.
Fundraising is not her favorite thing to do.
“Fundraising is some people’s thing, and a board needs a variety of backgrounds. I may not be the best fundraiser, but I can look at your books,” she said with a laugh.
“I try to look over everything once a month. … We go through and double-check all the receipts. I help prepare the budget in cooperation with the director.”
Breanne McClendon, executive director of the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas, said she is excited that Phillips received the United Way honor because it’s well-deserved.
“She’s just been a huge asset to me in my first year,” said McClendon, who started January 2018 in the shelter position. “She’s really helped streamline our accounting processes and put even more checks and balances in place.”
In addition to the monthly board of directors meetings, McClendon said, she and Phillips have a finance meeting each month “to really go over the books and make sure we’re spending what we’re supposed to be spending and staying in budget. She’s so willing to just check in with me so that we feel comfortable with what we’re doing.”
Phillips said she wants to continue to serve as a volunteer through the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas and the United Way and help share her experience and knowledge with her UCA students.
“Obviously, my goal is to continue teaching and improve as an instructor, but also to continue to get students involved in this VITA program, because I believe it is a very important service to the community, while it provides students a fantastic opportunity to get real-life experience.”
And the best part, she said, is interacting with the clients.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.