Get Bent Tax Man!

A few days before Jack was born we received a letter in the mail from the State of N.ew Y.ork.....I have noticed how all my favorite blogs are starting to do the whole period between words thing, so I am joining in :)...They claimed that we owed them over $500 buckaroos from our 2008 income. Being 2011 and all I was racking my brain as to how this might have happened and I realized that was the year we moved back to Colorado....oops Col.orado :). hahaha just messing around now.

In that year I graduated, we bought a house, moved and obviously changed jobs...when tax time came around I knew I was outta my tur.bo-tax-using-league so I opted instead to have a CPA file our taxes.....obviously it is a good thing that we did because Ne.w York is a fuckin' shiesty state, sorry to my peeps who still live there. I found our return and looked at what they were trying to claim. They were wanting us to pay income tax to them on the income we made in Colorado....so basically they wanted us to pay them in addition to the taxes we paid to Colorado. Um eff no we're not doing that thank you. But nice Natalie responded to the claim by writing a letter and attaching a copy of our 2008 tax return explaining that we filed taxes in both states since we lived in NY for 1/2 the year and moved back to Colorado permanently.

Well a couple weeks ago I got a second letter saying 'um that still doesn't mean you don't have to pay us taxes too'. 'um yes it fuckin' does!'- says me. So now I am getting a bit pissed. I verify with my father-in-law that in fact the taxes were filed correctly and he tells me to contact the CPA and have him write a letter directly. Part of me wanted to just ignore NY. I mean what can they really do to us?....but that made me think- what can they actually do to us? I have no idea. Can they put a lean on our house in Colorado? If they send it to a collections agency will that in fact hold any weight? Not sure. So I've left a message with the CPA that filed our taxes and if I don't hear back from him...because I am assuming he is still in business....then I plan to go to the first tax place I see on my way home on Friday and asking them if they can respond. Fuck I would rather pay $100 to an accountant than give one cent to NY for this sneaky shit.

I was talking to Andy last night as I was gathering all our documents together and it dawned on me...I knew why they were bringing this up right now. Most people don't keep their tax documents even for the recommended 3 years. Well I do. I have all the way back to 2005. And I am sure most people in the same situation would just think the service they used or Tu.rbo Tax made a mistake and pay up. Well I am not that kind of person, NY. I will not go down without a fight!

This might not bother me so much if it wasn't the second situation where NY state tried to get money from us after we've moved away. Apparently they have an entire division of people out there whose entire job is to track people who move out of the state and figure out ways to make them think they still owe NY money.

The first situation happened a few months after we arrived. We received a letter saying Andy needed to pay an additional $400 to the DMV because he had two speeding tickets. They verified in the letter that he had in fact paid both tickets on time, but this was an additional bill for no valid reason. They sent us several threatening letters saying if he didn't pay that they would suspend his NY license.....which was fine with us because he already had his Colorado license. The final letter just said he was not allowed to operate a vehicle in the state of NY....so if we go up to the cabin to visit his family I'll drive. Problem solved.

I can't help but feel like Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Stranger Than Fiction" and say "Get Bent Tax Maaaannn!".