Somebody Is Trying To Steal Our Money!

I say "somebody" because it happens to be a department of the government, and I don't need them flagging me for airing their dirty laundry. Let's refer to them as the "Check Eaters". You know, the ones that take most of your pay before you even see your check?

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Now I accept the fact that they eat our checks. We elected all the fools that put us in this economic spot, so there is no way around it at this juncture. What I can't accept, is when the Check Eaters try to steal from soldiers and their families. Allow me to explain...

When a soldier deploys, the money that they make during their deployment is tax free as a little perk for putting their lives on the line. Fair enough? So we did our taxes this year, got a little money back and were happy as a lark. Then all of a sudden, the Check Eaters in Virginia (our home of residence) decided that we should be taxed on a portion of the money Will made while he was deployed. Now I could see this as a mistake if they tried to tax him on all of the income, but how does a trained Check Eater look at a soldiers W-2, see income that is non-taxable, and decide that he should pay taxes on a portion of that. He's all like, "For shits and giggles, let's see if these suckers will pay this."

Um...no.

So what did we do? We called and explained ourselves to Check Eaters that acted like they had never come across a situation like this. They had no clue that we shouldn't be taxed or so they said, made us send them his W-2 again, and said they would review it. Cue to a few weeks later and we got ANOTHER letter saying that we owed the money PLUS penalties.

Um...what?

We called AGAIN. This time, they searched their office for his W-2, and found that it had not been "reviewed" yet. So let's get this straight...

1) They don't know how to do their jobs.

2) They just tell people they owe random amounts of money.

3) They assess penalties when they are the ones that are too busy to review W-2's.

We are pretty sure that they are going to review it and we will be off the hook, but think about how many times the Check Eaters tell people they owe money after they have already filed, and how many people just pay it because they assume that a Government Agency would not try to screw you.

Moral of the story:
ALWAYS second guess it when someone tells you that you owe money after the fact. Especially when that someone is a "Check Eater". It could save you hundreds of dollars. You're welcome.