3457 NY Sales Tax!!!!!!!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

What is hateful to you do not do to others.
That is the entire law. All the rest is commentary.
-- Rabbi Hillel the Elder (paraphrased) --

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Friday I was very proud of myself. I located online and filled out the four-page form for the final tax filing for my NY DBA, indicating that I was killing it, enclosed my original tax authority certificate, and mailed it to Albany. I made 2 copies of the tax forms and the certificate - one for my files and one for my accountant. And I did it all two weeks before required. Yea me!

Yesterday morning I walked along the waterfront with a Meetup group (8 other adults, a child, and a basset hound), and had lunch with a smaller group in a tiny diner in town.

When I got home, I got out some 8.5 x 11 photo paper and made copies of a few hundred photos for Daughter. Actually, I'm giving her the originals, I made the copies for me. It took all afternoon, into evening, to do it all.

The very first set came out oddly. I had arranged six snapshots on the scanner screen, put photo paper in the hopper, and pressed "copy" - and was amazed that the photos came out with ... text ... NYS tax form text ... in the spaces ... between the photos .... Ack!

I had left the last page of the tax form in the copier! That's the page with my signature, and email address, and phone number! I sent off an incomplete form! Ack!

I can't simply make another copy, include the original final page, and send it again, because the certificate went in the original package! If this were a reasonable business, you'd think that would be ok, that they could put together the parts from two different mailings.

But this is NOT a reasonable business. This is the New York State tax machine. It's an impenetrable bureaucracy - so impenetrable that when you call the phone number, you get a tape that tells you to go to the website. Period.

Of course, this situation won't be on the website.

I have no other option but to do just what I can't - to write a cover letter, attach the full tax form and a copy of the certificate, send it by overnight mail so it will arrive about the same time as the other - and hope that with the literally tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of forms they'll be receiving, someone will be smart enough to put the two halves together.

(Um, it has been my experience that they don't read explanatory letters. I don't have much hope. And given that there is a hefty fine for being late, and a hefty cost to replace a "lost" cretificate, there's not exactly any incentive for them to make it easy.)

I am crushed.
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