Press Release

Swingline Stack-and-Shred Office Technology and Products Take the Hassle Out of Tax Time Prep

Lincolnshire, IL. – March 13, 2012 - Swingline®, a worldwide leader in delivering workspace tools for the business, home and mobile office, wants to help you get a jump start on tax season preparation and planning. With some practical and easy-to-implement tips from Certified Professional Organizer® Lorie Marrero, this can be your most stress free tax season yet! From classic to cutting edge staplers, desktop hole punches, electric pencil sharpeners and hands-free shredders, Swingline has you covered with clever products that you will use and enjoy well beyond the tax season.

"We come up with excuses every year for delaying our tax preparation, but no matter what the excuse, the end result is always the same—we are forced into a stressful time crunch around having our taxes finished by filing day," says Lorie Marrero, creator of ClutterDiet.com and author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. "A little bit of planning and preparing, along with having the right tools, can help tremendously to make those tax excuses obsolete."

In fact, according to a January 2011 story in The Morning Call daily newspaper, via statistics from the IRS, more than 30 million people filed their 2010 taxes in the final week of the filing period. So that you won’t be one of those scrambling at the last minute, Swingline and Lorie Marrero offer the following smart tips and products:

Keep It Simple

• The ART of document sorting – Action, Reference, Trash (A.R.T.) Make sorting simpler by separating "Action" papers, things you need to do, from "Reference papers" things you need to keep. Trash refers to recycling or shredding.

• Designate a spot where all of your tax documents will go – Whether it’s a hanging file folder or an accordion file, designate an easily accessible location for your tax documents such as year-end bank statements, mortgage statements, property tax records, retirement plan statements and brokerage statements. Once you have a system created for this year, go ahead and create folders for next year too. Don’t reinvent the wheel each time.

• Set up electronic folders that correspond to your physical folders. – You are likely to receive some tax documents in electronic form, as well as "soft" copies of your final return. Name these folders by year in a consistent way on your hard drive, and make sure you have them backed up appropriately.

• Set up a time to do your taxes -- Due to a Washington DC holiday, the 2012 tax deadline is April 17th, so you have two extra days this year. Getting started is the hardest part, so set a time, be accountable to someone to get it done, and sit down for at least one hour to start the process. And remember to reward yourself for your hard work!

Essential Tax Time Products from Swingline

Swingline™ Stack-and-Shred 60X -- (SKU# SWI 1757572; Estimated Street $149.99) The 60X features patent-pending Hands Free Auto+™ technology, so you spend less time feeding the shredder and more time getting stuff done. It also features rollers that automatically feed the paper into the cutters, cross-cut shredding/security level 3, secure credit-card shredding, and shredding of staples and paper clips in any corner. The 60X is the perfect shredder for personal use and to safely destroy confidential documents. The compact design is tailored for under-desk use. Coupled with quiet operation and an easy user interface, the Stack-and-Shred 60X is the best choice in its class.

Swingline® Optima™ Electric Pencil Sharpener (SKU # 29968; List Price $65.02) The Optima™ electric pencil sharpener is backed by a 100% Performance Guarantee to support its fast, quiet and reliable sharpening capability. Carbon steel blade gives pencils a smooth, sharp point for masterful writing and sharpener has a convenient storage area to organize your pencils.

Swingline® 747 Rio Red Stapler (SKU #S7074736E; List Price $36.71) The Swingline® iconic, legendary red stapler lets you staple with pride and confidence. This metal red Swingline stapler is durable, noticeable and efficient. It has earned the title of America’s #1 desktop stapler because it provides outstanding stapling performance time after time.

Swingline® EasyView™ LightTouch® Desktop Punch (SKU # A7074065; List Price $38.70) Use less effort for your standard manual 2 and 3 hole punching jobs with this durable, desktop model that offers a soft grip lever handle and requires 50% less effort. Additional key features include 12 sheet paper punch capacity and EasyView™ indicators change from red to green when papers are aligned.

For more information on all of the products listed please visit swingline.com

For a chance to win the Swingline products mentioned in this release please "Like" us on our Facebook page starting March 12 at Facebook.com/swinglinered for the Tax Time sweepstakes

Follow Swingline on Twitter at @swingline

About Swingline Products and ACCO Brands Corporation (NYSE:ABD)

Swingline, from ACCO Brands, is a leading brand in workspace tools for the business, home and mobile office. For more information, please visit www.swingline.com.

Quality. Innovation. Reliability. The Swingline name means products you can trust.
For over 80 years we’ve helped you successfully achieve your workplace goals and move on to other projects. From staplers to trimmers and punches; from sharpeners to shredders including the revolutionary NEW Stack-and-Shred; you can depend on Swingline to help you get the job done.

ACCO Brands Corporation is a world leader of branded office products. Its industry-leading brands include Day-Timer® Swingline® Kensington® Quartet®, GBC ® Rexel, NOBO, and Wilson Jones® among others.

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Source: "Tax man will cometh three days late this year" by Matt Assad, January 9, 2011
http://articles.mcall.com/2011-01-09/news/mc-allentown-tax-day-20110109_1_federal-tax-filing-day-tax-man

Grayling Connecting Point
Tanya Jeffers
415-897-0999 direct
415-720-6456 mobile
tanya.jeffers@graylingcp.com

Grayling Connecting Point
Dan Jackson
415-442-4032 direct
415-215-2661 mobile
mailto:jessica.cooper@graylingcp.com