Soldiers and their families will have fewer places to go for free tax help this season, Military.com has learned. Last fiscal year, the Army ran about 60 tax centers, staffed by civilian temporary tax preparers, legal staff and volunteers, using tax preparation software provided by the Internal Revenue Service's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. But after former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis redirected funding toward mission readiness and lethality in 2018, the service delisted tax centers as a mission-essential task of U.S. Army Installation Management Command, a U.S. Army Europe spokesman said via email last month. Read more on Military.com.