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An Open Letter to Maryland Tax Authorities
Dear Comptroller of Maryland,
I'm writing to let you know that your office may be at serious risk of a class action for harassing the public. I lived in Maryland for a grand total of five months in 2003, during which time I neither owned property nor earned any income from anywhere. Yesterday I opened my mail to find a bill from you for $1,832.53 for back taxes. Um, excuse me? Taxes? For what? Not only that, but it's a very threatening bill, a “final notice” that says you're going to garnish my wages or take some other drastic action to take from me this money I do not owe. FYI: I have no income to garnish, so good luck with that.
But seriously, this is ridiculous. You sent my girlfriend similar letters months ago and tried to bill her for Maryland income taxes for 2002. That might be fine except that she lived and worked in Illinois in 2002! Then you had the gall to force her to prove that she lived in Illinois in 2002 by making her send you something from the state of Illinois as proof. It's one thing for you to make an egregious mistake; it's another to force her to go out of her way to prove that you're mistaken. If you ask me, the burden of proof should be on you to show at least some minimal evidence that you have a basis for your tax claims, rather than forcing good taxpaying citizens to waste their time proving how wrong you are in order to protect their wages from your greedy garnishment actions.
Don't get me wrong: I think taxes are great and I will happily pay my fair share. But just now, I've got nothing to spare and since I haven't really had any income for going on three years now, I really don't appreciate being slapped with a huge and threatening income tax notice from a state where I only lived for five brief and income-free months. Please, if you must harass someone, find a target who at least has some money to collect!
Yours in really resenting this threatening and absolutely baseless bill you sent me,
-ambimb
Posted July 24, 2005 04:54 PM | life generally
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It's times like that that turn me into a raging libertarian.
Posted by: womanofthelaw at July 25, 2005 09:58 AM
what possible basis could they have for charging you this outrageous amount?
Posted by: monica at July 25, 2005 02:22 PM
that's terrible . . . but your letter made me laugh. what would kitty locker say?
j9
Posted by: Anonymous at July 25, 2005 10:10 PM
Ha! Kitty Locker would not approve, I'm sure, and I'm actually not sending the letter, of course, but sometimes it's just necessary to get these things off your chest, you know?
I still haven't actually talked to the Comptroller's office to figure out what this is all about. I better do that before they make good on their garnishment threats!
Posted by: ambimb at July 26, 2005 06:44 AM
