Your Health ; In the News
Older Adults Can
Be Bullies, Too
; What an Outrage
IRS Leaves $385 Billion Uncollected
Today we often read about cyberbul- lies among young people, but bullying
also plagues senior centers, assisted living
facilities and nursing homes. ; Between
10 and 20 percent of residents in senior
care homes are mistreated by peers, says
Robin Bonifas, an Arizona State University gerontology expert. Nationwide, that
translates to hundreds of thousands of
people who endure abuse. ; Many incidents of name-calling, bossy behavior,
loud arguments and, at its most extreme,
physical violence go unreported. “It’s very
difficult for a lot of our seniors to step up
and say something has happened,” says
Mary Jones, director of elder rights at the
Area Agency on Aging in West Palm Beach,
Fla. ; Some facilities adopt practices that
aim to preempt aggressive behavior. If you’re sizing up a place, experts recommend asking
whether it follows these practices: ; Residents are required to sign a code of conduct to treat
peers with consideration and respect; resident “ambassadors” help newcomers transition
into the community; staff members coach residents on how to handle snubs and aggression; staff members encourage bystanders to act in positive ways when they observe bullying, being respectful of possible physical or cognitive impairment; and offenders receive a
written reprimand or, in the case of multiple complaints, stronger penalties. —Susan Kreimer
The Voice Heard Round the World
Download
phone app
and scan to
hear Hopkins. Or go
to aarp.org/
hopkins.
Carolyn Hopkins has a voice that’s
launched a thousand
trips. ; Travelers hear
departure and arrival
messages taped by
Hopkins, 63, at roughly 250 airports and
train stations around
the globe. ; Since 1984, Hopkins’
pleasant tones have been broadcast
in places such as New York’s subway
system, Disney parks and Incheon
International Airport
in South Korea. ; The
Maine resident has
even heard herself
give flight times and
politely ask travelers
standing on moving
walkways to please remain on the right-hand
side. “There are times,” she says,
“when I walk into an airport and
I say, ‘Oh that’s right, I did that an-nouncement!’ ” —Blair S. Walker
; Hopkins recording.
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Listen to the Bulletin on NFB-NEWSLINE, a free service of the National
Federation of the Blind. Call 1-866-504-7300 toll-free or go to nfbnewsline.org.
(((
As Congress wrestles with the federal budget deficit, lawmakers may be
too focused on cutting spending to see an
income opportunity. ; Cuts to the Internal
Revenue Service budget are leaving the
agency struggling to spot fraud, assist taxpayers and boost collections, according to
Nina E. Olson, the national taxpayer advocate. ; As a result, the IRS may be leaving
billions of dollars on the table annually. IRS
data show that individuals and companies
underpaid their taxes by a whopping $385
billion in 2006 alone, the most recent year
for which statistics are available. ; “The
IRS is effectively the Accounts Receivable
Department of the
federal government,”
wrote Olson in her
annual report to Congress. “If the federal
government were a
private company, its
management would
fund the Accounts
Receivable Department at a level that it
believed would maximize the company’s
bottom line.” ; Frequent changes to the
tax code as well as more fraud and identity
theft cases are among the factors contributing to a growing IRS workload, even as
the agency’s budget declines, according to
the report. Olson indicated that strains on
the IRS also mean taxpayer rights are often
compromised when reviews of tax returns
occur because no single employee is responsible for overseeing a particular case.
; IRS officials acknowledge the problem. “Budget cuts can lead to noticeable
degradation of IRS efforts involving both
taxpayer service and tax enforcement and
can have a lasting impact on the nation’s
voluntary tax compliance,” the agency said
in a statement. —Michelle Diament
