swimming deeply in the red
I just got back from the friendly and nice downtown providence federal building. I had been to that location several times in the past, like for example in 2002 when I actually filed my tax return, because I had been for-real employed rather than "non-employee compensated" which most potential payers want to consider me (since the government decreed that all amployees must have workers compensation coverage at the employer's expense, thanks for looking out for me 'the government,' you just made my life a hundred times more difficult). There is a big special room, just past the metal detectors and four uniformed police-y type guys, which is called the 'taxpayer assistance office' and lo & behold, there was absolutely no-one else there waiting for service so I "got a number" right away (seriously, there was nobody else there but the Lady at the information desk hands me ticket #500 [!] and says "window 4" while gesturing in an efficient yet friendly way) and I was immediately referred to a cubicle where I worked with very nice gentleman named V. Tran, and I "filed" not just my 2001 return but also 2000, 2003, and 2004, which break down as follows:
2000: I owe $ 827
2001: I owe $ 1,238
2003: refund! $ 637 (will obviously disappear into the above and below)
2004: I owe $ 56
which is all not including interest and penalties, I will get a bill in 6-8 weeks, he said, at which time " if " (ha ha) I am not able to pay it all, I can try to work out a payment arrangement. I will be pretty surprised if the interest and penalties are waived ($1,100 for 2001 alone as estimated by the IRS in october of this year, prior to $1500 re-calculation of my expenses).
My main impression after the experience is the total, and from where I'm sitting self-evidently obvious, fact that the premise of this existence is primarily built on a foundation of LYING. For example, "OK for such and such a year our records show that you made 3,000, so you don't owe anything." Like I could possibly be alive and living in an urban area if I had only made three thousand dollars in an entire year!!! But they don't mention this, and obviously I would be a very slightly different kind of idiot if I mentioned it to them. And the part when he's like "okay in 2004 we show that such&such an employer paid you $1,859, did you have any expenses in that time?" and I'm all "well, no; that was all him paying me an hourly wage (and I didn't even drive to his wood-shop, I walked)" [as opposed to other years where I was like "OK out of that $1,400 this other guy paid me, about $500 of that went towards materials"] and there was this medium length pause where I realized "(oh shit, I'm totally supposed to say a big chunk of that was expenses too, even though it wasn't, but since I have no documentation for ANY of this either way, I should totally just say that it was, so I will owe less money!)" but I just couldn't do it, the moment passed (I also managed not to say "that mother humper said he was paying me under the table, no wonder my W2 was effed up! Some other jackass assistant of his must have made up some shit and forged my signature!), and Mr. Tran just typed in $0 dollars for the expenses part.
You know? like this is how it works, is you lie when you think you can get away with it, and if you get audited later you might or might not get burned on it, but (I guess) you're supposed to calculate how much you save by lying, and compare it to how much extra you will pay if you get caught, and divide it by the likelihood that they will audit you, and that's how you arrive at "the official story" which is pretty much a fabrication based on whatever figures were unfortunate enough to get recorded. It is profoundly depressing, but I don't have to think about it for 6-8 weeks. Except that it is almost all I think about all the time, not the specific IRS / money angle, but the "HELLO!!! THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A HUGE RAFT OF SHIT!?! HELLO?!" [ "shut up, would you rather sink?" ] angle.
As far as the money part goes, I feel very relieved to have it "all" "out in the open" even though I obviously am supposed to be able to magically cough up some ungodly chunk of cash at some point in the now-forseeable future. But I just feel like when that bill comes, I can put it with all its sibling bills*, and talk to somebody ELSE, who will either say "OKAY, just sign here here and here and initial this and this, we cut off this and those, your first 4 children and 7 grandchildren will be harvested for their organs immediately upon birth, and you just wear this on your ankle for the rest of your life; thanks have a great day!" or " yeah so alls you gotta do is drive dis car to dis address, get out, and walk away. DON'T LOOK IN THE FUCKIN TRUNK, and DEFinitely be more than 5 blocks away by 3:07 pm, capiche?" or " this is called a 'chapter 11 bankruptcy filing', under most circumstances it isn't advised but I see that your, ah, liquidity is... sufficiently compromised, that the resultant complications are actually a marked improvement on your, aahh, 'economic prospects' (for lack of a more appropriate term still suitable for polite company)" or whatever.
Life continues to be an exciting mystery to me, even as it grinds me to a bloody pulp and utterly fails to even wipe my remains off the bottom of its shoe.
*like my school loan which I am coming off of deferment on as of, ulp, like tomorrow, and another $600 in festering credit-card debt from this same year when I supposedly made enough money to have twelve hundred fucking EXTRA dollars for uncle sam? I mean, its not like I was doing smack or fucking prostitutes with all that non-existant money, it went to my rent and my food, and to my college loans!!! FUCK!
2000: I owe $ 827
2001: I owe $ 1,238
2003: refund! $ 637 (will obviously disappear into the above and below)
2004: I owe $ 56
which is all not including interest and penalties, I will get a bill in 6-8 weeks, he said, at which time " if " (ha ha) I am not able to pay it all, I can try to work out a payment arrangement. I will be pretty surprised if the interest and penalties are waived ($1,100 for 2001 alone as estimated by the IRS in october of this year, prior to $1500 re-calculation of my expenses).
My main impression after the experience is the total, and from where I'm sitting self-evidently obvious, fact that the premise of this existence is primarily built on a foundation of LYING. For example, "OK for such and such a year our records show that you made 3,000, so you don't owe anything." Like I could possibly be alive and living in an urban area if I had only made three thousand dollars in an entire year!!! But they don't mention this, and obviously I would be a very slightly different kind of idiot if I mentioned it to them. And the part when he's like "okay in 2004 we show that such&such an employer paid you $1,859, did you have any expenses in that time?" and I'm all "well, no; that was all him paying me an hourly wage (and I didn't even drive to his wood-shop, I walked)" [as opposed to other years where I was like "OK out of that $1,400 this other guy paid me, about $500 of that went towards materials"] and there was this medium length pause where I realized "(oh shit, I'm totally supposed to say a big chunk of that was expenses too, even though it wasn't, but since I have no documentation for ANY of this either way, I should totally just say that it was, so I will owe less money!)" but I just couldn't do it, the moment passed (I also managed not to say "that mother humper said he was paying me under the table, no wonder my W2 was effed up! Some other jackass assistant of his must have made up some shit and forged my signature!), and Mr. Tran just typed in $0 dollars for the expenses part.
You know? like this is how it works, is you lie when you think you can get away with it, and if you get audited later you might or might not get burned on it, but (I guess) you're supposed to calculate how much you save by lying, and compare it to how much extra you will pay if you get caught, and divide it by the likelihood that they will audit you, and that's how you arrive at "the official story" which is pretty much a fabrication based on whatever figures were unfortunate enough to get recorded. It is profoundly depressing, but I don't have to think about it for 6-8 weeks. Except that it is almost all I think about all the time, not the specific IRS / money angle, but the "HELLO!!! THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A HUGE RAFT OF SHIT!?! HELLO?!" [ "shut up, would you rather sink?" ] angle.
As far as the money part goes, I feel very relieved to have it "all" "out in the open" even though I obviously am supposed to be able to magically cough up some ungodly chunk of cash at some point in the now-forseeable future. But I just feel like when that bill comes, I can put it with all its sibling bills*, and talk to somebody ELSE, who will either say "OKAY, just sign here here and here and initial this and this, we cut off this and those, your first 4 children and 7 grandchildren will be harvested for their organs immediately upon birth, and you just wear this on your ankle for the rest of your life; thanks have a great day!" or " yeah so alls you gotta do is drive dis car to dis address, get out, and walk away. DON'T LOOK IN THE FUCKIN TRUNK, and DEFinitely be more than 5 blocks away by 3:07 pm, capiche?" or " this is called a 'chapter 11 bankruptcy filing', under most circumstances it isn't advised but I see that your, ah, liquidity is... sufficiently compromised, that the resultant complications are actually a marked improvement on your, aahh, 'economic prospects' (for lack of a more appropriate term still suitable for polite company)" or whatever.
Life continues to be an exciting mystery to me, even as it grinds me to a bloody pulp and utterly fails to even wipe my remains off the bottom of its shoe.
*like my school loan which I am coming off of deferment on as of, ulp, like tomorrow, and another $600 in festering credit-card debt from this same year when I supposedly made enough money to have twelve hundred fucking EXTRA dollars for uncle sam? I mean, its not like I was doing smack or fucking prostitutes with all that non-existant money, it went to my rent and my food, and to my college loans!!! FUCK!