Financial Wheeling and Dealing, Tax Division

The deadline for renewing my car's registration is here . . . so I bought a couple bottles of wine.

It's not that the re-registration process is something that could drive someone to drink. I have mentioned before that it's actually very quick, simple and relatively painless. Bring the registration notice to the county building, pick up a number, stand in the shortest imaginable line (there was one couple ahead of me), hand the notice to the clerk, pay the fee, receive the sticker and off you go. Fifteen minutes, including travel time (we live pretty near the county building).

No, the wine, or at least some purchase (I also bought dates, figs, tomatoes, onions, a wedge of brie and a pomegranate), is necessary because the county insists on tacking on a surcharge to all payments made with debit/credit cards and, since I still use my bank back in Salt Lake City, meaning all ATMs out here are out-of-market and charge fees for extracting cash, therefor getting said money requires going to the grocery store and adding on the cash-back option to my purchase.

Theoretically, I could just buy a pack of gum and still get the $60 cash back but that seems lame and Thanksgiving is here so we're going to indulge anyway.

And the car's legal for another year.

Call of Duty

So it seems, between voting and donating blood, two weeks ago was my voluntary good citizenship week. My involuntary good citizenship week is next month.

I received a summons for jury duty.

It came with my exclusive juror number, directions and a map to the courthouse including exclusive juror parking lot, notification of food and beverage availability, warnings about punctuality and attendance . . . and a warning to bring a jacket because the courthouse is apparently hyper-air-conditioned and nobody can do anything about it.

I was called to jury duty once in Utah and was fairly impressed by the efficiency of the system. The light rail Courthouse stop is one block from the actual courthouse so I didn't have to drive to downtown Salt Lake City. After registering with the clerk so they knew I existed and was available all I had to do each evening for a week was call the special juror phone number and see if my number was called for the next day. When the week was up, so was my exposure. Turns out I had a very high number (or it was a slow week jurisprudentially). I never was called.

This most recent notice doesn't say anything about a weeklong obligation, only my presence requested on December 10. I don't know if the system here lets you go after one day if you're not selected or if they keep you once they've got you.

Either way, I know I've got a jacket around here somewhere.

In Which I Respond to the Bureaucracy

I have received, collated and sent off to the State of Utah, with my attached explanation of why I do not owe any taxes to the State of Utah, the income records I requested from my former employer.

I will now sit back and expect to hear nothing from the State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Division regarding the information I have just sent them. On the assumption that, at least when dealing with government tax authorities, no news is good news, this silence will be a welcome thing.

Best wishes to them and may our paths never cross again.

Know Your Market

Facebook doesn't know I have not been in Utah for some time now, and I am fine with that. There are a lot of things I prefer Facebook not know. But what that means is the random ads appearing on the right side of my page are often, when they are not national or Internet-based, still geared to Utah. (And while I suppose it is nice to know a couple of my friends claim to "like" Walmart, that is not sufficient reason for me to ever set foot in there.)

A few days ago an ad appeared for a local (Utah) mortuary.

Irrelevant aside: "Mortuary," the preferred term of art in Utah, always struck me as being exceptionally cold and clinical, perhaps because I hail originally from New England where we had funeral homes and funeral parlors, phraseology going back to before the Civil War when it was customary to set up the casket for viewing in the parlor at home. Professional funeral homes generally didn't appear until after the war when the  practice of embalming (originally becoming more widely used in order to be able to transport soldiers' remains long distances from the battlefield to home) gained acceptance.

Anyway, aside from the fact I have no need for, or interest in, their services their pitch otherwise seemed exceedingly well-placed.

They were offering a seminar on their plans and options, to be held at the local Golden Corral. I simply can't imagine better demographics than a herd of retirees loading up on all-you-can eat cholesterol. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some business right there before the evening was over.

I hope they appreciate their marketing guy's genius.

Bureaucracy Blues

A couple of months ago I received from the State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Department a very polite letter claiming they had no information regarding an old state income tax filing of mine and suggesting that I probably owed them money because, hey, they had no evidence that I didn't and, by the way, they had destroyed all the old documents going back including from the year they were now interested in.

Unfortunately, because half my paperwork was left behind when I moved to Florida, I also had no evidence that I didn't. And I don't.

I contacted my former employer back in Utah and, after some searching around, they were kind enough* to send a copy of my W2 from the relevant year with which I was able to cobble together an ersatz return I hoped would complete the records held by the state that they could then destroy since they were beyond the official "keep until" date. As long as they made themselves happy first.

Unfortunately, I never noticed (because I didn't think such a thing was even possible) the replacement W2 the old employer sent me, although having the right year on it, had the (substantially different) income numbers from the previous year. How is that possible? They swear they simply pulled it from my file**.

The State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Department has now contacted me a second time to inform me that the numbers I submitted with my ersatz return don't even come close to the numbers on my Federal return. They want to adjust the numbers up to match, which is reasonable. And they're still being extraordinarily polite.

Unfortunately, the Federal return doesn't show the amount of tax withheld by the state and adjusting the income numbers up without also adjusting the state withholding will result in a very large (and not at all reasonable) tax liability for me.

I have now requested my former employer to send me copies of all my W2s so I can figure out what happened and how to build an argument acceptable to the State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Division. Politely, of course.

*Technically, they're legally obligated to provide it but they were very nice about it all considering it's not really their problem.
** O.K., now it is at least partially their problem.

Visits, Here and There

The niece and her mom stopped by on Saturday. We intended to go mini-golfing but her mom begged off saying she had errands to run and computer stuff to do, my brother warned that he had limited time before having to go off to work, and Caitlin wanted everyone to be there so we put the expedition off until they return to town from their detour to Georgia to spend Christmas with aunts and uncles from the other side of the family. (Mom ended up hanging around and visiting all afternoon anyway. We probably could've managed two rounds.) And, maybe by then it will be a bit warmer, too.

As a result, my trip to St. Petersburg to see vacationing friends from Salt Lake was put off until Sunday. I managed to find them with only one slight detour which brought me to the tip of such a delightful barrier island that I took them on the same detour later. We ate at a diner that (unbeknownst to us beforehand) was having their regular half-off-your-bill-if-you-wear-your-pajamas-to-brunch Sunday. You could tell the regulars from the visitors by who was (over)dressed for the occasion (although most of them were wearing something under their pj's to keep warm on the trip to the restaurant).

After croissants, omelettes and French toast we ended up in downtown St. Pete along gallery row where we examined blown glass made by Chihuly and his disciples, a number of offbeat restaurants, more glass and furnishings galleries, and a couple of really funky boutiques. The sun came out and the day warmed up nicely. I found a handmade present for my sister-in-law at a tiny Moroccan place.

We were saying goodbye as I prepared to return home when we were interrupted by a raucous chorus of a half dozen green parrots on the wires directly overhead. another flock of a dozen or more circled a few yards behind them. It was a perfect send-off.

Friends and Family

This should be a busy and fun week. Not only did the world not end on this solstice, some of it is coming here to visit.

My brave and beautiful niece (the one who just had her third open heart surgery a couple of months ago) and her mom are in town from Connecticut for a few days. They came down right after Caitlin played her harp in a Christmas concert. They're staying at a house owned by her mom's sister's family. When she told me, back in November, she would be visiting she asked if we could go play miniature golf. We'll do a couple of rounds this weekend despite the cold front that just blew in. She also wanted to go swimming but I'm not so confident that's going to happen.

Following right behind said cold front are a couple of friends, now married, from back in Utah. They're going to be up in the Tampa/St. Pete/Orlando area starting this weekend assuming their flights take the southern route and don't get entangled in the winter storm disrupting the rest of the country. We'll be able to catch up on all the stuff our other friends aren't willing to post on Facebook.

I'm making cookies for everyone. Oatmeal raisin now, chocolate chip later.

And, welcome back, Sol Invictus!

Government Efficiencies

Birthday time is also automobile registration renewal time so I went over to the tax collector's office this afternoon.

The county has separated routine tax payments from others that might require additional information/decision-making/judgment calls and so there is a typically governmental larger room with rows and rows of metal framed plastic chairs for people dealing with those issues and a small rope-lined area for "I'm just here to pay, no questions, no issues, thank you very much," folks, like me, all overseen by the number-issuing concierge.

I told the number-issuing concierge I was here to renew my vehicle's registration. He said, "That's it?" I said, "Yes," he printed out my number and told me to enter the rope line. By the time I reached the end of that (very short) path, the only person in front of me was finishing up with the cashier, who called my number. I handed her the registration notice and the cash (because Florida lets card companies tack on a service fee for using plastic) and she handed me my change and the license plate sticker.

I was in and out in under two minutes.

A few years ago, when I wanted to start an LLC back in Salt Lake City, I went on line to learn the process and required information (which was minimal). With that in hand, I went to the county offices there, paid the fees and had my business officially up and running in less than two hours.

When the government has a financial interest in getting you through the system it can be impressively efficient.

I just wish I knew how to apply that interest to running an election.