[geeks] Tax Weirdness

[Amy]

On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

> I just assumed that they're as honest and as much fun to work with as any
> other government organization.  I have bad memories of government
> contracting (NCSE), and everytime I've dealt with OSHA, the VA, the DOEd
> or -any- Texas gov't organization or -any- county[1] organization, I've
> been left with the feeling that I'd just wasted five hours of my life
> dealing with moronic maggots who see me as their one shot at a sadistic
> ego-trip.
>
> Then, maybe that's just my comically bad luck getting me the worst
> possible representation of the organization.
>
> This really is my first positive federal government interaction.  I'm
> still in awe that there's someone working for the government that
> -doesn't- make me want to feel like a twit whose ass they own.

i don't know about city, county, or state--i avoid them like the plague
round here. hell, my car still has tn tags cause i dont cotton to paying
travis county's ad valorem tax and ass-raping registration fees. but i do
know about the irs and a small number of other governmental offices (among
them, social security and the dept of ag). there are some great people who
work there. most are completely nuts, mind, but they're nice as can be
considering most make shit for money and put up with losers all day long.

be realistic. to me, and the rest of the workers who are or have been
employed by revenue, it's a job. there's nothing personal about it until
some jackass gets in our faces saying how we're so terrible. bullshit. the
workers are there to help solve numerical problems. numbers dont lie.
people frequently do..and when they lie against pure logic of numbers on
paper, they tend to look foolish and get up in arms over
self-induced humiliation.

as far as i was concerned, if people played it straight and didn't pull
some ridiculous lie on figures (*cough* deductions *cough*
unrecorded mileage *cough*) or sob story (mamma died last last year but
she ran over all our records on the tractor beforehand, etc etc) to me, i
would help as much as i could--there are many loopholes in the rulebooks.
but start lying to my face and pulling some whiny shit and it pissed me
off and i stopped caring and started going by the absolute rulebook--no loops
and no niceties.

> [1] I'm -really- pissed off at them.  This is the -third- -damned- -time-
>     that they've "lost" my voter's registration.  How can you -lose-
>     something -once-, let alone -three- -times- when you go to the
>     courthouse and file it in person?  Grr.

any large or even medium office is gonna be full of inconsistencies from
time to time. granted, i dont see how they could lose your shit three
times...but ya never know. maybe bastrop's just clueless. :)

--a