Taxxachusetts

[billroper]

I picked up the mail today and found an envelope from the State of Massachusetts. We had gotten a temporary sales tax permit for the 2004 WorldCon in Boston, so it was just possible that we'd misfiled something.

Instead, we found a demand for more than $3500 in sales taxes from July, August, and September of 2005. Now since we haven't set foot in the state since September 2004, I'm just fascinated as to what they think they're doing.

daisy_knotwise will call them tomorrow and try to straighten them out, since they've obviously lost their little minds.

Comments

[giza.livejournal.com]

Wait... is that like one of those scams where you "won" money but have to pay them money for "administrative fees"? :-)

[madfilkentist]

That says you've done $70,000 in sales in Massachusetts alone! Congratulations!

It's typical of Massachusetts to demand money with no explanation. A few years ago I got a claim by them that I'd underpaid by some amount. I wrote back insisting on an explanation, and they backed off. This year they demanded something like $1.98, and I paid it rather than bothering to argue.

But for $3500, it's obviously worth fighting.

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

Please don't leave us in suspense about the outcome of this investigation.

Three obvious possibilities ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

1) here in the UK, if you don't submit a tax return, then they will "estimate" your income, invent a tax amount (almost certainly higher than you'd have otherwise) and send you a bill for that (oh, and then send you penalty after penalty for not sending in a tax return which can end up costin g more than the tax did). Perhaps they figure that since you had income in 2004, then in 2005 you probably did too and had "forgotten" to claim and they are inventing a high number to scare you into filling out a tax form

2) They've gotten your tax number mixed up with someone else's (maybe someone sent in their from with the wrong reference number on it)

3) They are totally nuts!

Good luck!

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

You're handling it all wrong. The fannish way to handle this would be to shout from the rooftops that it is the fault of the convention you were attending.

[pheltzer.livejournal.com]

You'd better be careful or people are going to start thinking you're the source of this sort of thinking. :)

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Should have posted that anonymously.