I'm Not a Libertarian

I'm chanting the title of this post like a mantra to keep perspective on this whole Maryland tax issue. I spent about an hour on the phone with people in various Maryland tax offices trying to figure out what they think is going on. First, I learned that they are trying to charge me MD state income tax for tax year 2002. That's all well and good, except that I don't think even set foot in Maryland, let alone lived there, until 2003, so their claim is clearly baseless. But the second thing I learned is that I have to prove it. I had to fax them my 2002 tax return and W2 form to prove I was really a resident of another state in 2002.

That's right: Maryland (or probably any other state) can bill you for taxes from three or four years ago and even threaten to garnish your wages—even if you had absolutely zero connection to Maryland during the time for which they are billing you—and you either have to pay or prove they made a mistake. Why should I have to prove them wrong? Why isn't the burden on them to prove they're right?

Ok. Mantra. They have to have the presumption here or they would spend all their time and resources proving their claims and have no time or resources left to actually collect taxes in an efficient way that benefits everyone who lives in or visits Maryland. Mantra.

But why did this happen to both me and my girlfriend? To me it looks like they're fishing for extra tax liability in a way that goes beyond a reasonable assumption. They claim that we probably received these bills because when we filed our 2002 returns we used a Maryland address. Since we filed in 2003 for tax year 2002, and we actually did move to Maryland for a few months in 2003, this seemed possible. But then I checked and neither of us used a Maryland address on a tax return ever. I told the MD tax people this and they just shrugged (over the phone no less—it was pretty amazing). So why are we being harassed like this? I dunno. My best guess is that MD just looks at change of address records from the postal service or something and if you've ever received mail in MD or paid a bill in MD or I don't know what, then they go back a year and assume you owe taxes there. The most helpful tax worker told me they spent lots of time fielding calls from people like me (at least 100 people/day) who are upset that they're getting back tax notices. She said about 50% of them actually do owe something, so it's worth MD's time to deal with the other 50% who don't. Hmmph. Mantra.

Posted July 27, 2005 06:45 AM | life generally