AARP Tax Aide

AARP Tax Aide offers free tax preparation services to low and moderate income taxpayers.  Now in its 50th year, Tax-Aide has helped 50 million taxpayers – and counting.  You don’t have to be an AARP member, and there’s no age requirement to get tax help from IRS-certified volunteers.

Those IRS-certified volunteers include us.  When we moved to Beaver Dam for the winter, we volunteered for Tax Aide, primarily because there was no Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program in Mesquite.  Makes sense – there are a lot of seniors in Mesquite and the surrounding areas. 

The Tax Aide program requires the same certification as VITA, plus a senior-specific training that we learned a lot from.  VITA’s focus is on getting low-income taxpayers their Earned Income Credit, where Tax Aide focuses on the needs of seniors.  We learned how to calculate the taxable portion of annuitized pensions and how to give a retired Public Service Officer a well-deserved tax break.  We also learned how to advise our clients who really don’t need to file a tax return at all.

In many ways, Tax Aide is simpler.  We saw no disputes over which parent gets to claim which child, and very few penalties under the Affordable Care Act.  Most of our clients have Medicare.  But in other ways it’s more complicated.  The more well-to-do clients are receiving Required Minimum Distributions from their IRAs, and taking capital gains and losses from their stock portfolios.

In two days working at the Mesquite Senior Center, I saw more W2G’s than I’d seen in six years in VITA.  What’s a W2G?  It’s a report of gambling winnings.  Casinos are required to report winnings of $1200 or more to the IRS.  Most players who report significant winnings also report significant losses.  Here’s the rule:  Winnings are considered income and are directly taxed.  Losses can be deducted if you can itemize deductions, but only up to the amount won.  Not a very favorable situation for the gamblers of the world, and they usually tell us about it. 

When we worked VITA it made me happy to see a single mother supporting her children get an earned income credit of $2000 - $3000.  Now, working Tax Aide, it makes me happy to see the 70 to 90 set bringing in a good income in retirement, enjoying their lives, and not having to worry about their taxes.  So far my oldest client is 93.  Hoping to see him again next year!

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument

When we rode out of Mesquite, Nevada into Lime Kiln Canyon, we had no idea that the road was one of the gateways to a little known national monument.  The Grand Canyon – Parashant National Monument is located on the northern edge of the Grand Canyon in northwest Arizona. The monument was established by Bill Clinton’s Presidential Proclamation 7265 on January 11, 2000. 

Per the National Park Service web site, “This national monument is a very remote and undeveloped place jointly managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The 1,048,325-acre monument is larger than the state of Rhode Island.  There are no paved roads into the monument and no visitor services.”  Visitors must be prepared to leave pavement and cell service behind.  Pets are allowed, as are off-road vehicles.  A high clearance 4x4 vehicle with off-pavement tires is strongly recommended to handle the rocky roads.  You can get visitor information at the BLM office in St. George, Utah.

Near the Lime Kiln Canyon Entrance

According to the Grand Canyon Trust (www.grandcanyontrust.org), “Much of the monument remains unexplored, with only five percent of the protected land having been surveyed. You can see remnants of ranching, mining, and timber cutting at sites like Tassi Ranch, Nixon Sawmill, and Pa’s Pocket Line Shack. But human history here dates back much further. Thousands of archaeological sites—petroglyphs, artifacts, agave roasting pits, pueblos—document the cultures and lifestyles of the Ancestral Puebloan and Southern Paiute cultures. The monument’s name derives from an early translation of a Paiute family name “Parashonts,” meaning “elk or large deer standing in water.”

Jacob's Well

Grand Canyon – Parashant is one of the 21 National Monuments to be evaluated under President Trump’s Executive Order 13792.  So far, its acreage has not been reduced – at least, not as far as I have been able to find online.  Maybe it’s too remote for mining and timber cutting to be economically practical.  We saw evidence that grazing is still permitted at a site marked “Jacob’s Well.” 

The nearest towns to the monument are St. George, Utah, Fredonia, Arizona, and as it turns out, Mesquite, Nevada.  The road into the monument from Mesquite is completely passable in a 4WD vehicle.  I don’t recommend driving the sedan.  But if you’re a fan of beautiful desert wilderness, I do recommend Grand Canyon – Parashant National Monument.