AARP offers seniors help with their taxes
As they have for many years, the AARP is helping senior citizens and low-income individuals file their 2007 income tax returns.
From 9 a.m. to noon Thursdays at the Dundee Township Public Library, senior citizen volunteer tax consultants meet, by appointment, with clients who need help. If all the necessary paperwork is provided, the client leaves with their taxes completed and filed electronically.
Raymond Sussmann, 88, is the coordinator for the program for the AARP and has been part of it for 25 years. The consultants who fill out are Terry Hensley, Lois Hill, Bob Larson, Bob Albrecht and Merv Hagen. This is the first year that all taxes will be completed on a computer.
Sussmann said they can help individuals or self-employed people with basic returns. If there are very complicated forms that need to be done, they recommend professional consultants.
"All we do is put the numbers that these people give us on a piece of paper," Sussmann said. "They have to come in with their dividends, interest, social security, capital gains, when they bought stock and when they sold it, and what they paid for it.
"If we can't handle it, we tell them to go to a professional tax consultant. We try to help most anybody that comes in or makes an appointment."
The assistance is free, and Sussmann was clear to say they do not accept gratuities. (He did, however, once accept a pecan pie from a particularly grateful woman.)
For details or to make an appointment, call (847) 428-3661.
Planning plantings
Spring is finally here. Even though it isn't quite time to start digging and planting in your yard, it's the perfect time to start planning where you're going to dig and what you're going to put in that hole.
For new ideas, Shirlee Stanchina, general manager of Platt Hill Nursery, invites you to their location on Randall Road for the annual Spring Preview from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 5 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 6.
There will be free informational seminars and the newest plants and garden products will be on display.
"We have it early in the season because people are just really getting cabin fever from the winter -- especially this winter," Stanchina said.
While the weather still isn't the greatest, they can get excited and start making plans for what they want to do in their yard and improvements they want to make. It gives them ideas to get started."
Stanchina said the latest trend in garden products is organic.
"We've done a lot of research trying to find more organic products to substitute for the basic chemicals that people have been using over the years for their gardens for fertilizers and insect and weed control," she said.
Platt Hill has teamed up with Bailey's Nursery in Minnesota to offer customers bare root trees and shrubs. Upon purchase, customers must plant them immediately since they are sold just with their bare roots exposed, not in a pot of dirt. They are offered at more affordable prices.
"It gives people in the area a chance to really plant their own trees and to plant more," Stanchina said.
Seminars offered will cover container gardening, perennials, rose care, spring blooming shrubs, landscape design and shade gardening. For details, call (847) 428-6767.
• If you have any news about your club, school, church, business, neighbor, or even yourself, contact Kirstin Finneran by cell at (312) 518-4993 or e-mail at kirstinfinneran@comcast.net.