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 04:54 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | life generally

16 Mile Can'tWalk

I'm not a model on the catwalk, I'm a dawdle on the can'twalk. It's what happens when you run 16 miles. At least it's what happens when I run 16 miles, which I did this morning after barely running at all for the last two weeks. Can you believe it!? I can't, but there it is. It probably wasn't a good idea to do so much today, but that's what the program said to do and wow, it sure feels good to have it under my belt.

The reason I haven't been running much recently is that I have a new enemy called my iliotibial band . This little introduction to the problem of “IT Band Syndrome” pretty well describes what's going on. For a while I was concerned that I might not be able to run the marathon, but now I'm thinking I can beat it. Thanks to my best friend SuperD, I have lots of stretches to do, plus it's almost like I can now say I do yoga! The rest, stretching and ice help, as does ibuprofin, but I wouldn't have been able to get through the miles today without one of these little velcro bands. I know it's no cure, but at least it gets me down the road. The good news about IT band syndrome is that, although it can hurt so much you can't even bend your leg, it's not a sign you're doing any permanent damage to your knees. So.... onward to the marathon!

Thanks so much to SuperD and Mr. P and M for their incredibly generous donations to the Whitman-Walker Clinic and my marathon effort. I definitely couldn't be doing this without you!

If you would like to help out the clinic and my marathon, you can also donate! Whitman-Walker and its many clients need our help now perhaps more than ever. And did you know the “Whitman” in Whitman-Walker is none other than Walt (the poet)? That's what this article says—so of course it's a worthy cause!

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. —Song of Myself

Now we're talking! How can you say no to that? Oh, and there's also the little fact that I signed a, ahem, contract today that gave the clinic permission to charge my credit card for whatever of my $1700 goal I haven't raised by the end of August (yikes!). There's still plenty left before I reach the goal so anything you can spare would be much-appreciated. Thanks!

Posted 01:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | marathon