Will Shred for Food

Saturday was Shred-It day at the South Kingstown Office Park, courtesy of H&R Block. A commercial size shredder, housed in a box truck, was on scene to gobble up any and all paperwork that came its way.

All Sandra Cutting, owner of the Wakefield franchise of H&R Block, asked in return was for a non-perishable food donation for the Jonnycake Center of Peace Dale. “In my business, we are guardians of confidential information” Cutting said, “and in today's world we have to be very careful how we handle it”.

Despite being in the last, busy weeks of tax crunch time, Cutting wanted to provide this service to help people safely get rid of papers that have sensitive information on them as well as getting the community to support the food bank.

By the end of the event a lot of trees were saved and a generous amount of food was collected. The tally was 202 people served and 8,000 pounds of paper shredded. H&R Block staff members were on hand to collect the food and help people carry their papers to the shedding truck. Papers arrived in bags, boxes and even garbage cans. “It is all hands on deck” laughed office manager Cindy Page. The staff team planned to deliver the food after the event was over.

 “I think we New Englanders have a tendency to save things” Cutting said. “People are always confused about how long they should to hold onto certain records”. Her staff put together a helpful handout on the subject.

For tax returns, Cutting offered a few hints as April 15 approaches:

• Hold onto tax returns for seven years since the IRS has three years from your filing to audit you and a six year window to challenge your return if they think you under reported your income by 25 percent or more.
• Keep your credit card statements for seven years if you have tax related expenses that are documented on them. You paycheck stubs can be discarded after a year, once you have matched up the information on your W2 from your employer.
• If you find any discrepancies you can demand a corrected form. If you own securities keep your brokerage statements until you sell them so that any capital gains or losses can be proved.
• Bills from large purchases should be kept indefinitely in case you have jewelry, computers, antiques etc stolen or destroyed. The insurance company will want proof of value. To see the other categories you can stop in at H&R Block and pick up a copy of the handout.

H&R Block is located at 24 Salt Pond Rd., Unit D5, in the South Kingstown Office Park. You can contact Sandra Cutting or her staff by calling 401-789-7986 or email Cutting at scutting@hrblock.com