Thanks to tax prep sites

The AARP Tax Aide program has completed our work for this tax season and want to express our appreciation to the sites who allowed us to use their facilities for taxpayers to drop off tax documents and pick up tax returns.

Special appreciation to the Cape Girardeau Public Library which also allowed us to use their meeting rooms for the preparation of all tax returns that were collected at our various sites so that we could meet AARP regulations about how to work with the COVID issues. Other sites that allow use of their facilities for drop off and pick up included the Riverside Library sites at Jackson and Sikeston, Senior Centers at Cape, Chaffee and Marble Hill and the First General Baptist Church at Advance.

We were not able to serve as many taxpayers as in past years due to the much more restricted interaction between taxpayer and tax preparer, but the cooperation of taxpayers was greatly appreciated. We were able to complete about two-thirds of a normal year amount of tax returns.

Also, special thanks to our volunteers who worked many additional hours this year while dealing with everyone's concern with COVID.

Hopefully, next year we will be able to return to our normal processes providing services at no cost to older, lower-income taxpayers of Cape Girardeau, Scott, Bollinger and Stoddard counties from Feb. 1 to April 15.

DEL ELFRINK, district coordinator, AARP Tax Aide Program, Cape Girardeau