Tax Dollars

I am convinced our government is one of the most complex organizations in the world, and was designed to be a well-oiled machine. The problem is the system is implemented by people who screw it up. These Government Workers (GW) are told by their computers what to do and if they would do what the computer says everything would be fine. But for some reason they find it hard to take simple instructions and louse it up for everyone.

Now I am not bashing GW alone, people are in general seem to be on a steady downward slope of intelligence. So don’t write me because your brother-in-law is some whiz at the Sheriff’s department because I don’t care and it isn’t relevant to this.

A little “true story” example of our Government: My wife, Tonya, and I go to the courthouse, actually the department of motor vehicles (DMV) to renew our vehicle tags and drivers licenses’. I had no problem, Tonya went to do hers and they would not renew it because the DMV’s computer said Department of Social Security (DSS) would not allow them to renew her. I asked if we could call the DSS and they said yes but it won’t do you any good because their computers are down. Since these are the same computers that tell these GW what to do, no one there could help us. The folks at the DMV offered Tonya a 90-day license and say if we don’t clear this up with the DSS they would revoke Tonya’s license. OK, well we would have to deal with that another day when the people at the DSS had computers to tell them what to do.

So, we went over to the Sheriff’s office to get an out-of-state vehicle inspection done on a car we bought from a guy in St. Louis (extremely long story we are not touching on right now). Amazingly enough that went over without a hitch. We stroll over to County Clerks Office (CCO), with all our happy little papers and wait, I’m sure you’ve been there. Our turn comes and we excitedly approach the very un-personable lady(now I’m not saying they’re all mean. Don’t write me because your cousin Charlene works at the Splitfork Co. DMV and was voted sweetest worker of the year 3 times in a row, I don’t care, I’m just saying this lady was not friendly) and say, we would like to renew the tags on our vehicles, change our addresses, and register the car the Sheriff’s office just inspected. Oh and by the way, my beautiful wife wants the KY Horse License Plate (KHLP). Well now the lady is mad because this is more work than she had planned on doing so she has a little attitude. She asks for our notarized copy stating how much we paid for the out-of-state car. I provide her that, but ohh, it’s not on the right piece of paper. Evidently, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has there own special form you must fill out and have notarized, otherwise you must pay sales tax on the estimated value of the car according to their computer. I ask the GW, what’s the difference in the amount of money I have to pay? She says something like $25, would you like to come back and do this when you get the right form? Hmm, I thought, let me see, do I want to find a guy in St. Louis, mail him a document and ask him to get it notarized, mail it back to me and then come back up here, or do I want to pay $25. I said I’ll take door number 2, here’s the $25. What’s next? She then asks for my license plate, so I can exchange it for the KHLP, I said I don’t have it, she said without it she could not give me the KHLP. I said why. Well she didn’t know why, but I am assuming that’s what her computer told her to say so I decided not to argue.

I drive back home, because remember I was in the car that needed to get inspected, not the one that got the KHLP, to get the plate and returned. I wait in line and was fortunate enough to get the same lady and she says how can I help you? I thought, what am I wearing a costume, I was just here. I hand the lady my papers and tell her I would like to KHLP. She says OK, and goes to the secret room where they keep the KHLP and comes back and says we’re out of them. I guess the computer doesn’t keep track of how many they actually have, so no one could have possibly known they were out. She apologized and said this should never happen. I thought, well no sh*t (remember I said “I thought” I didn’t say it, the CCO is close to jail so you don’t do anything stupid there). Not only do they not have it, but we cannot even get one when they do because once you renew you can’t change plates until the next renewal. So I settle for just the tag and get to go back home and put my old license plate back on my car.

Now we still have that matter of Tonya’s driver’s license to clear up. She goes to the DSS and they tell her she has the wrong name on her license and she needs to bring in her marriage license to prove her name. Tonya tells me this and I say ok, let’s get the license and take it up there. She asks me where it is and I say I thought you put it up, but she thought I did. No problem, we’ll just go to the CCO, they can look it up on their computer and get a copy for a few bucks and put this all behind us. Off to the CCO we go and the computer has no record of us getting married and that must be right because it’s a computer and if it were wrong then everything these people ever would have done would also be wrong. I said we did, because we had a real preacher and everything, Tonya said yes and we took pictures too. Well the computer says you did not.

Meanwhile another little government agency known as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sends us a letter. The IRS computer says, since we are not legally married we cannot file as a married couple and claim three children. They say to clear all this up, send us a copy of your taxes for the last 2 years, all supporting documentation, birth certificates of all kids, divorce decrees, and oh yeah a copy of your marriage license. Well, son-of-a-gun, if I had a marriage license, none of this would have happened.

Tonya remembers making a copy of it though and giving it to her employer for insurance purposes and they make us a copy and we stroll down to the marriage license place and show it to them. Well, they look up the number on the certificate in their computer and wouldn’t you know it, we were married, but the dummy that input our information into the CCO computer had inserted our middle names where our first name was supposed to be. Well this presents a problem, because no one ever asked us anything but our first and last names. So the CCO apologizes, actually they said “we would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.” Now if you say you would like to apologize, does that really mean “I apologize”, or does it mean “I would like to apologize but I’m not”. And not just that, but did you catch the end where they said “this may have caused you” not “we may have caused you”. So we mail the IRS our stuff along with a letter and Tonya makes a trip to the DSS and they get her name right in the computer.

About two months later we get a letter from the IRS(actually every time the IRS sent us a letter they came in pairs, one for Tonya and one for me I guess, since they both had the same names on them I don’t know. We got two letters on four different occasions from the IRS, the first pair for the audit, the second saying they received our papers, the third saying we are still working on it, and the fourth closing the case). The letter stated “Thank you for your assistance with this and we have closed your case,” and get this, “we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.” Ladies and Gentlemen, This is what your taxes pay for.