As Midnight Rider can attest to, trying to deal with bureaucracy in these trying times, is trying. When you don't have
to worry about money, it's hard to truly understand those who actually do.
And as far as bureaucracy is concerned, you can't get much bigger than the IRS.
Due to changing financial circumstances, I felt it would be best to do what the IRS tells us to do, I called them.
I explained that I am unemployed, facing homelessness and do not have any money. All I want to do is cancel my payment agreement.
Talk about hoops and loops. Say, "I am facing homelessness and am not sure where I will be" and their next question is,
"How do we contact you?" Uh, considering I don't know where I will be, I can't tell you that.
Oh, um, studder, studder....
Ok, how about we lower your payment? I say, ma'am, I am not working and do not have any money. If you try to take the money out of my account, it will bounce and I will have even less money. I hope to be back on the plan soon, but I do have a refund coming that will more than cover the amount I owe.
That's when things got really interesting.
Them: So who set up the direct debit?
Me: I did. I filled out the paperwork and sent it in.
Them: Oh (sounding shocked)
[Who the hell else would set up the direct debit?]
Them: Ok, well I will have to send a referral over to our debit department to cancel the payments. (Sounding like this was too much work for her)
Me: (thinking) That's what I called about, you idiot.
Them: So this is your cellphone
Me: Yes it is.
Them: So this is the number we can contact you?
Me: Yes, for the time being as long as it is on.
Them: Big sigh
It continued on like that for 45 minutes. It didn't get better. She continued to talk to me like I was some kind of scum of the earth. The tone of her voice was awful.
Does the IRS read the news? Are they not aware that
the economy totally sucks right now and that there are many people in this country who are losing their jobs and homes?
Why have they not received training regarding phone calls like mine?
I felt down right dirty by the time I got off the phone.
Is this how us lifelong tax payers are being paid back?
8 comments:
You are a tool for their benefit.
Your funds provide THEIR energy to continue.
Your work is their energy
Your existence is of use only if it provides THEIR energy
Does this analogy REMIND you of anything?
your not alone. I was assessed an extra 1500 bucks the first year I lost my job (2 years ago) and I had to pay up. the guy on the other end was pretty much a moron. and when I called the taxpayer advocate service in the IRS they treated me like I was scum becuase I was trying to find a way to parcel it out over the year. and they are supposed to be advocates! they had no answers and were not helpful.
let me put it this way. I have no sympathy for irs employees. becuase they have none for us. they should be outcast untouchables in our society.
They are not only cruel, they are stupid. Either that or they are deliberately playing at being obtuse, which makes them doubly cruel.
It fascinates me how many of them leave the IRS and then when they go to set up their own tax-advice business they suddenly turn into geniuses who are going to "take on the IRS" and "save you a bundle". Add dishonest to stupid and cruel.
This is a pretty hard line to take in a world where having social security, "senior housing", and a tiny crafts/collectibles business rates as relative "security", but yes I think it's time we started treating those who choose to remain in such lines of work as IRS and TSA agents at least as enablers of coercion.
Ask them (IRS Monkeys on a String),for concrete proof that all of the States ratified the 16th Amendment unedited. Then goto a Custard shop and have a concrete mixer. Sell Plasma if you can, no such thing as donate if you get paid, duh!
See all you Dhimmis in North Florida as soon as I can sell my house...say 2016..scuse me I have to eat,,er feed my Cat....unemployed for now,,back to Academia as Kindergarten Cop ad nauseum.
I'm amazed at how prolific and eloquent my cussing has become dealing with bureaucracies -- both gov't and corporate (but I repeat myself) -- these past 15 months. It's especially gratifying to nail them with Fuck You and Go To Hell in Polish.
Christine you are in much worse shape than I am right now, and my situation is poor and deteriorating. Thoughts and prayers to you and hoping you get righted soon.
I've said ti before when watching TeeVee or reading the news I have to be careful lest I throw something through the tube or shoot the monitor.
Every time I hear some fucking idiot on Fox or CNN or the floor of Congress saying how we have to stop the unemployment somewhere we have to draw the line there's no reason they shouldn't be able to find something after 99 weeks they just don't want to work I have to remind myself
it is only the people with jobs who are saying that. And not all of them.
I'd like to see some of them put in this position, try to find something when there are 15-17,000,000 + (fuck that bullshit 9.8 % 8.5 million number) competing. One job for every 5 unemployed.
Hey, give me a job, a career, that utilizes talent and skils (save the burger flipping grocery bagging for the kids in school) and I will happily and willingly work instead of sitting on my ass on the dole. I hate this.
Again, Christine, thoughts and prayers and not just "at this time of year" (damn that aggravates me) but always.
Hey MR thanks a bunch.
I have come up with a plan B and will be fine.
MR, you speak Polish? That's not you leaving Polish emails to me, is it? (Actually I suspect those may be the result of my trying to find a copy of the Taniec Wampirow CD.)
If I hadn't taken social security a year early (barely any difference) in 2009 I would be out of work and desperate for sure, even with the sidelines. Fortunately, I was used to taking jobs like senior cashier at a Borders to let me do my eBay. My brother is 64 with his own small advertising-sales business and works like a 20-something even with the ss just to try to afford his apartment without taking in roomates.
And nothing will convince me that Obummah and his Alinskite friends arent' smiling inside at all this.
I speak very little Polish, more so I understand what's being said (I can take it from Polish to English but not the other way around). Comes from my maternal grandmother whose parents literally got off the boat in 1913. She still speaks it a bit.
True story: When her parents were getting on the boat someone was coming around doing some sort of health checks. If there was a problem a number (or letter?) was written on your back and you were not allowed on the boat.
They wrote a number on my greatgrandfather's back.
When no one was looking my greatgrandmother wiped it off.
Heard it from a great uncle (now deceased) who was there and witnessed it.
Guess where I get my stubborn and on'ry streak from.
:)
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