Bearshorty's musings

Even after going to bed at 8 with Tanya yesterday (I was super tired and had a migraine to boot) and getting out of bed at 6 when she started crying in her sleep, I still feel exhausted. At least my migraine is better. She usually eats once a night and I fed her at 12:45am. But today she also started crying at 3:30 so I fed her again. She never cries at night, just moves around a lot so she is either reacting to the rain or is going through a growth spurt. I usually have trouble falling asleep again after I feed her, hence being all tired. Hopefully, tonight she will go back to her one feeding a night. She is napping in my Mom's arms right now, so I get some free time. It's a rainy day today.

The most annoying part this week so far has been me dealing with NYS Department of Taxation and Finance. On Monday, I got a letter from my bank that I have a levy placed on my account for $266 by the New York State Tax department. This is the first I have heard that I owe any debt whatsoever. The bank also took $100 fee for that. Looking at my account, the money was for 2010 taxes. I looked at my tax records and that year NY State paid me $154. So the next day, once I'm at my parents' house, I spent half the day on the phone trying to figure out what happened. Turns out that New York State did an audit of my 2010 taxes and disavowed my tuition credit since it was for grad school and they decided that didn't count. They determined I had to pay $200 plus $37 in interest that accumulated since 2010.

Ok, I said. Why didn't I get any notice to pay. Well, I did get notices. It was sent to the address they have on file. I did notice on the copy of the warrant the bank sent me, they didn't have the apartment number of my building. And the person on the phone noted they didn't have the apartment number. Which means none of the notices got to me. But wait, I said, I'm looking at my 2013 taxes and my apartment number is right there. My accountant printed a copy for me; I have all my records. Well, they say, maybe the accountant sent the form without the apartment number. How is that possible, I say, if he just printed the electronic copy he submitted. Because I didn't get any notices, I now have to pay the state $267 dollars plus that $100 as a bank fee and sort out this levy.

After talking to the supervisor, they graciously agreed to ask the bank to waive the fee for the levy, but, they said, it will be up to the bank if the bank agrees to do so. Because that'll happen. Meanwhile, I should go to their website, pay the whole thing and they would release the levy. I should call back once I did so. So, of course, I do and then I had to be on hold for 90 minutes for them to say that I had to check on Nov 14 that payment went though and that they did release the levy.

The whole thing just made me so angry and upset. I'm the kind of person who doesn't like owing anything. I pay my credit cards in full every time. So having an official warrant for non-payment of debt to the point that my bank account was levied made me upset. And then, because of their mistake of not adding an apartment number to their notices, I had to pay extra $35 plus $100 bank fee at the time when I'm on maternity leave and not working and have no income right now, and when I'm trying desperately to save $1400 to redo a root canal I did 10 years ago and get a new crown on it. And when our health insurance premiums will triple in January.

And I had to go to a dentist on Monday for check-up and cleaning and I don't like going to the dentist. Dealing with bureaucracy is worse. Especially since there is nothing you can do even if they made a mistake.