I received a disturbing mailing the other day — and no, it wasn’t from the City of Geneva about my reassessment (although that was delivered a few days later, and when combined with this one, made for quite a 1-2 gut punch, I must say).
It was from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, four very official-looking pages that stated in bold letters at the top of the first page: You have a fixed and final unpaid tax debt.
My first reaction wasn’t exactly super intelligent: “Huh?!?!”
My second reaction wasn’t exactly super suitable to be printed in a family newspaper.
This letter didn’t say “There may be a mistake here” or “Did you forget to mail in your payment?” or “Give us a call and let’s chat about this.” It stated fairly directly that I owed the Great State of New York dough, and it was in my “best interest to immediately pay the balance due” or “we may refer your case to a private collection agency.”
There was something in there, too, about garnishment of wages, a civil judgment against me and seizure of personal property. In other words, it was serious.
I probably don’t need to get super personal here, but let’s just say it was no small amount, and just to ballpark it, let’s just say it was somewhere between $3,046 and $3,048. Give or take.
Oh, and there was one other thing about this not-so-love letter: the balance due was from the tax year that ended Dec. 31, 2020. Let me put this another way: IT WAS FROM 2020!!!!!!!
One thing about me is that I pay my bills. On time. Whether it’s an outstanding debt to New York State or I have the oil changed in my car, I pay. I don’t like things lingering, and I especially hate late fees. An outstanding debt from 3½ years ago? Not in my wheelhouse.
So, the first thing I did was contact my buddy who’s an attorney. The letter had no details on why I owed what I was alleged to owe, only that I owed it. He looked at it and asked if I had any prior notice that this was coming. I hadn’t. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” he said.
Then I contacted my friend who is my tax preparer. She looked at the letter and suggested that maybe something got screwed up because of the pandemic, 2020 being the year that Covid-19 shut down the world and probably threw a wrench into the state Department of Taxation and Finance. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” she added.
You may be wondering along about now if this possibly could have been a scam. Believe me, I thought the same thing. I mean, let’s face it, as official as the letter appeared, scammers are becoming more and more sophisticated. I just read something this week about a new one: Scammers manipulating senior citizens’ caller IDs to appear as Medicare, Social Security or their doctor’s office to attempt to steal their medical identity.
And one thing certainly did not ring true in my letter. The balance due was broken down on two lines, and the top line stated that one of the tax amounts assessed was $0.00 but had an interest amount assessed of $10.91 and a penalty assessed of $78.17. So, I “owed” $89.08 in interest and penalties on $0.00?!?! I mean, math wasn’t my strong suit, OK, but that just didn’t add up.
The bottom line is that I knew where all this was leading. So, I steeled myself and cleared an afternoon for what I knew would be an interminably lengthy telephone call. First, though, I checked online to see whether the phone number provided was a legitimate one for the state Department of Taxation and Finance. It was. Their website even had a link to click on that showed samples of legit correspondence from the department alongside dubious letters. To my chagrin, mine sure looked legit.
That call? It lasted three hours and 17 minutes, most of which, of course, was being placed on hold. I was transferred to four different folks, and each transfer, I assumed, brought me deeper inside the labyrinth of state Taxation and Finance offices. Also, of course, with each transfer I had to re-explain why I was calling. My letter had various codes and numbers: A Collection Case ID, two Assessment IDs, a DTF number (don’t ask me what DTF stands for, though I could make something up) and others. The employees I spoke with asked me for all those numbers along with my Social Security number, my address, info from recent tax filings, and when was the last time I had my hair cut.
Just kidding on that last one.
They all clicked and clacked away on their computer keyboards, looking up all that info, and they all came back with the same answer: My name was not associated with any of those codes or numbers indicating that I owed as much as a single penny to Albany. I asked all of them how this could have happened then, and no one had an answer, except Ashley, the last woman I spoke to.
“It must have been sent out in error,” said Ashley.
For my reaction to that, see the third paragraph of this column. It’s the same!
No “Sorry about causing you such a high level of consternation.” No “Sorry about the three hours and 17 minutes of your life that you will never get back.” No “We like your hair, who cuts it?” In fact, no apologies at all. Just “Ooooops, guess we mucked this one up.”
This really happened, and I’m writing about it primarily to give you a heads up if you get a letter like this, especially if you are older. You may have guessed by now that I probably would not be “Pub Chatting” about it if it didn’t have such a benign and joyful ending, and you’d probably be right. I’ve said before that I write about a lot of personal episodes not because my life is so special but because I hope it reminds readers of their own similarly experiences. In this case, though, I hope you don’t have a similar one, and if you do, see if you can work your way to Ashley.
Now, about those reassessments …
Mike Cutillo is the publisher and executive editor of the Finger Lakes Times. Contact him at mcutillo@fltimes.com or 315-789-3333, ext. 264.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
