If you sit near me in the office, you’re already familiar with this story. I apologize for all the profanity you’ve been exposed to. This is not an interesting blog post, but I’m hoping that by writing it down some of my rage will wane.
According to my Skype logs, I’ve spent over 7 hours on the phone with the California Tax Board. All of this is in relation to $130 in owed taxes from the year I moved to California, which I managed to file but apparently not pay. Unfortunate oversight. Definitely my bad. Let this be a lesson to you.
I’ve maintained a US mail forwarding address for all US correspondence, and that is the address California has had on file for me. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, they decided to change my address to the Australian tax service who prepared my return last year, then sent all notices related to the $130 in back taxes to that address, who of course immediately discarded them.
I come to find out that I now owe $1908.94 in fees related to the $130 in back taxes. I call the tax office repeatedly, send them multiple letters and faxes with the appropriate requests for lifting the ‘Penalty’ fees, all of which fall into a black hole and never get associated with the account. Meanwhile they add another $300 in collection fees.
The account then gets moved to their billing office. The billing office does not like to take phone calls, and usually will leave you on hold for 45 minutes then say that they are experiencing a high volume of calls and hang up on you. I had this happen no less than eight times.
I finally called back to the main line. The lady said they had to transfer me to the billing office. I pleaded with her not to transfer me, as all the billing office does is hang up on me. She finally agreed to transfer me to her manager. After being on hold for another 25 minutes, she came back and said the manager would have to call me back.
Keep in mind that all of this is being done from Australia, and as soon as you start giving people phone numbers that start with +61 they stop listening.
I finally get thru to the billing dept this morning. They explain that they have no record of either the million prior phone calls or the written communications. They further explain that they have now applied the $900 in 2007 refunds owed to my balance, taking me down to a cool $1100. To put it in simpler terms, they stole my $900 refund for last year and applied it to artificially created penalties.
I plead. I whine. I beg. They say the only option I have is to go to court. In California.
I have no basis on which to measure the value of my time. Even if you apply an arbitrary $100/hour to it, that’s $700 I’ve now wasted in time, on top of the $900 they’ve stolen from me in refunds, on top of the emotional debt related to the venomous rage pouring thru my veins. Further, the situation is now threatening to affect my credit. I can’t go to court in California. I don’t want to go to court in California. I agree to pay them their taxes in installments over the next six months, and they agree to call off collections.
I hang up the phone, feeling empty, sad, and less of a man. A more principled person, one with time and motivation, would have continued to fight, I’m sure. But there’s no one to fight, just a big empty nameless entity who wants my money.
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