Coffee in the New York skyline mug, "Ada" by The National on iTunes. Already checked one item off the humongous To Do list this morning, and added three albums by The National to the iPod in preparation for the long plane ride tomorrow. Ack! Ack! Ack! "Stand inside an empty tuxedo with grapes in my mouth waiting for Ada."... Guess you have to be here.
A new headache came in the mail the other day and now I have to decide how much principle $45 buys. It seems that the Illinois Department of Revenue has upgraded their computers from a DOS-based system to a Windows one (one wonders if they got Vista, it would serve them right). In the process, every sales tax account that wasn't zeroed out generated a bill.
It took about a half hour just to get through to them yesterday to find out what was going on with the bill I got. Turns out it was in regards to my sales tax payment from December of 2004. When the woman who was helping me said that I remembered what happened. Back then I mailed my payments in instead of processing them through the wondrous Internet. Thanks to the (in)efficiency of the US Mail service, my payment took about two weeks to get to them (someone hand-carried it by foot maybe?). When I filed it on time I took the timely filers discount of $5. When they processed the payment they denied my $5 credit and billed me $25 or something for filing late.
I called them about the bill and they tracked down the envelope--with the postmark date for the filing--and saw that, indeed, I had filed on time. I was told I might get one more bill and I should ignore it as it would be fixed after that. And it was... till now. I blame Bill Gates. The original $5 is now $45 (penalties and INTEREST) and I have to decide how much it's worth to try to find all the original documentation from 2004 (or to write a letter detailing what happened if I can't find my original I-talked-to-so-and-so-on-this-date notes). *sigh*
And now--several hours later and after the safe arrival of Bettina--I finally post. It's been a day. I leave with photos of the bamboo shooting, the bamboo hut, J feeding a baby goat, me milking a goat, and the studio backyard with the STUDIO PICNIC TABLE. Whoo hoo.
Coffee in the New York skyline mug, "Ada" by The National on iTunes. Already checked one item off the humongous To Do list this morning, and added three albums by The National to the iPod in preparation for the long plane ride tomorrow. Ack! Ack! Ack! "Stand inside an empty tuxedo with grapes in my mouth waiting for Ada."... Guess you have to be here.
A new headache came in the mail the other day and now I have to decide how much principle $45 buys. It seems that the Illinois Department of Revenue has upgraded their computers from a DOS-based system to a Windows one (one wonders if they got Vista, it would serve them right). In the process, every sales tax account that wasn't zeroed out generated a bill.
It took about a half hour just to get through to them yesterday to find out what was going on with the bill I got. Turns out it was in regards to my sales tax payment from December of 2004. When the woman who was helping me said that I remembered what happened. Back then I mailed my payments in instead of processing them through the wondrous Internet. Thanks to the (in)efficiency of the US Mail service, my payment took about two weeks to get to them (someone hand-carried it by foot maybe?). When I filed it on time I took the timely filers discount of $5. When they processed the payment they denied my $5 credit and billed me $25 or something for filing late.
I called them about the bill and they tracked down the envelope--with the postmark date for the filing--and saw that, indeed, I had filed on time. I was told I might get one more bill and I should ignore it as it would be fixed after that. And it was... till now. I blame Bill Gates. The original $5 is now $45 (penalties and INTEREST) and I have to decide how much it's worth to try to find all the original documentation from 2004 (or to write a letter detailing what happened if I can't find my original I-talked-to-so-and-so-on-this-date notes). *sigh*
And now--several hours later and after the safe arrival of Bettina--I finally post. It's been a day. I leave with photos of the bamboo shooting, the bamboo hut, J feeding a baby goat, me milking a goat, and the studio backyard with the STUDIO PICNIC TABLE. Whoo hoo.
2 comments:
Good luck dealing with Illinois...
However, seriously, if it's going to take you more than half an hour searching for the materials to defend yourself, you'd be better off just paying the damn thing. Your time is more valuable than some $45.
Oh dear, this is something ELSE I need to take care of now that I'm back... sod all.
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