When Is A Tax Not A Tax

      I wrote a blog last May about my attempts to get my mother the tax refund she was due from the state of Michigan.  I helped her to file her taxes in February but weeks, even months, passed with nary a word not any money from the Department of Treasury.  Efforts to try to communicate with anyone connected with Michigan's version of the IRS were fruitless.

     Finally within the past month, she got her refund.  It was supposed to be deposited directly into her bank account, but instead she received a check as well as a letter explaining some adjustments they made to her tax return.  The adjustments cost her several hundred dollars so I said I would check to see if I made any mistakes on her original return.

    My numbers and math all checked out.  However . . . the state of Michigan did not agree with the amount that I said my mother paid in property taxes.  What??  It's simple, right.  You add the amount you paid in summer taxes to the amount you paid in winter taxes, and that gives you the total taxes paid.  Right?  

     Wrong, says the state of Michigan.  They said that my mother's winter taxes included an assessment for waste pick-up and disposal.  And that assessment is not a tax.   Hmmm, when I looked up assessment in my crossword dictionary, the first synonym it listed was tax, t-a-x.  Maybe we better tell Will Shortz, the guy in charge of the New York Times crossword puzzle that.  "Assessment . . . three letters"  It can't be "tax", Will  The state of Michigan says so.

     There was another adjustment that I found more puzzling.  My mother, living in the family home by herself with her own income, could not deduct herself on her tax return.  That's what the adjustment letter claimed to be the case.  I studied the copy I made of my mother's return and discovered that I had made an error.  

    I had correctly listed her as a resident, single with no dependents, and I claimed the appropriate individual deduction amount.  However . . . I should have added a "1" in the box which indicated the number of deductions I was claiming.  And with the math that the people in the treasury department use here in Michigan, if there was nothing in that box, then nothing times $5,800 is nothing as well.  So no deduction.

    You would think that the state of Michigan might err on the side of a 93-year-old woman and adjust her exemption amount like they adjusted her property tax amount, but squeezing every penny out of an old woman is more important than helping the elderly when they make mistakes.

     Speaking of which, my mother's older sister did not get any of her claimed refund from the state of Michigan.  I'm not that familiar with her tax situation but I can guess at what happened.  She moved out of her home recently at age 96 to move in with her daughter for a period of time.  She still owned the home she paid taxes on and still it was as far as I know her primary residence.

     But I'm thinking that when she listed her address as her daughter's home where she now gets her mail, the state of Michigan deemed that the property she owns and pays taxes on doesn't qualify for a refund.  You would think that the elderly who live on such a limited income would qualify for a break in this regard.  My aunt is not rich nor a real estate tycoon.  But again, squeezing every penny out of an old woman is more important than giving them a break.

     

      

     

I Use Geezer Pay

 When dining out, more often than not

They're not interested in the cash that I got

My bill has a QR code so I can pay by phone

A way that used to exist but in the Twilight Zone

A Facebook ad recently went on to say

That payment had to be made with Zelle or Apple Pay

But I think if I offered the seller a bushel of fruit

They'd say get lost, you big galoot

 

In today's world of pay pal, Google wallets and Venmo

You can no longer just hand over your dough

There are electronic payments and bank cards galore

Those who pay cash are today's dinosaur

 

I fear the new scams that come so fast and so furious

It's why I pay cash, in case you're curious

I'll protect my savings from those who would purloin

And entice me to trade my retirement for Bitcoin

 

The ways of paying today are many

Just avoid cash and certainly the penny.

In fact, it pains me to see

The cashier whom I've just handed currency

 

He inspects my bills like they're counterfeit

And counts my change slower than time should permit

And he wonders as he wears a puzzled frown

Should he round up or should he round down

And he seems to be caught in a pickle

As he contemplates whether to give me a dime or a nickel

 

Why do I feel I have a bone to pick

With schools that skip basic arithmetic

It's not like answers to every how, when and why

Can be checked in real time with your cell phone's AI

 

Of course I could really make my clerk a nervous wreck

If ever I reach into my pocket and pull out a check

Old Man

      In the James Bond movie From Russia With Love, the villain keeps referring to Bond as "old man," an act which appears to disturb the secret agent.  After the bad guy lets down his guard, Sean Connery as Bond leaps into action, subduing the would-be killer in a fight to the death.

       After his nemesis is dispatched, Bond retrieves cash the man had stolen from him at gunpoint.   "You won't be needing this old man," Bond says, returning the insult.

    I know I don't have much in common with the super spy myself, but I also do not like to be called "old man."  Okay, okay, since I'm 73 I qualify, certainly more than Bond since Connery was only 33 when he starred in From Russia With Love.  Still . . . 

    My wife and I camped earlier this month along the shores of Lake Huron at a popular state park.  As it was the Fourth of July weekend, it was particularly busy with kids running and biking the narrow roads and trails.

     While taking a walk to the beach, a little girl I figured to be about kindergarten age, rode her bike up to an intersection I was approaching.  For safety sake, I quickly moved aside.  "That's okay.  I'm not going there," she said to me.  Then she turned her head to warn her older sister who was riding up from behind and couldn't see me, my being screened by trees just off the road.

    "Be careful.  There's an old man that way," the little girl called out.

    Ouch!  Couldn't she have referred to me as a distinguished elderly gentleman?  Or how about just a guy or a man . . . maybe just someone.  Was there a reason to throw age into the equation?  Did that make me more dangerous, creepy or more apt to stumble into their path?  A curious senior here would like to know.  Or at least get a little more respect.

    Then more recently I was playing a little backyard baseball with my grandkids.  I usually pitch the whiffleball since that is what they want me to do.  I told my six-year-old grandson Charlie that I was going to throw him my super-knuckleball-slider, telling him, "Nobody has ever hit my super-knuckleball-slider."

    That's just a tease.  The ball floated over the plate like any other pitch I throw and Charlie clobbers it with his plastic bat, sprinting to first base easily.  When he gets there he calls out, "Eat your words, old man."

    Et tu, Charlie?

    [sigh]

    

    

Tiny Crushes

     Somewhere among hundreds of old photos sitting in cardboard storage boxes is a picture of me when I was just a preschooler giving the girl next door a big hug.  Jackie was a little younger than I but we bonded like we'd known each other all out short lives.

    I don't know what happened to Jackie.  We moved when I was in the first grade and I lost track of her.  We ended up going to different school systems so the possibility of a chance encounter was not in the cards.

    Friends made within the first five years of life are special regardless of sex.  But when they are boy-girl it provides a hint of what's to come when growing up leads to romance and possibly even a lifelong commitment.  So it's sad when you see little boys and girls playing, hugging and talking together, knowing that their instant chemistry some day will be lost to time and the inevitability of change.

    I remember taking my three-year-old grandson to a library when I babysat him while his parents worked.  While there he quickly made friends with a young girl about his age, together flitting from play station to play station while giggling and bantering about the fun they were enjoying.  Off to the side sat an aquarium with live fish which the kids returned to many times, marveling at the fish as they slowly meandered about their small tank.

    The underwater scene particularly fascinated my grandson who at the time was hooked on watching the trailer for the vintage horror classic Attack of the Crab Monsters.  In fact, he tried to make his own play date with his instant girlfriend asking her to come to lunch.  "We can have sandwiches and watch crab monster," he told her.

    However, soon the mother called to the girl that it was time to go.  The mom made a point of having her daughter say goodbye to my grandson.  Then they parted never to see each other again.  Now over 12 years later my grandson has had a steady girlfriend for the past several months.  They probably don't spend spare moments eating sandwiches and watching Attack of the Crab Monster.  But you never know.

    When I walked my youngest grandson Miles to the local park a couple weeks ago he met up with Sonja, a girl like him just two years old, but several months younger.  They go to the same pre-school and were thrilled to meet up by chance and play together at the park.  "I love Sonja," Miles confessed to me later.  From what I heard from Miles' dad who picks him up from daycare and observed the two playing together, the feeling was mutual.

    But Miles was moved into a group of older kids and could no longer play with Sonja, their group's outside play areas being separated by a chain link fence.  My son told me when he picked up Miles one day this past week, Miles was sitting on the ground at the fence, talking to Sonja who was sitting on the opposite side.

    It was a good example of the change that is inevitable as life goes on.  But it's still sad to witness.

My Mother's Tax Return

     Who really knows if there truly is a heaven or hell but if there is a hell, I'm convinced it's being run by the same people who set up and process our tax returns. Whenever I've had issues with tax returns, dealing with it is a descent into madness.     

     Since my father passed away four years ago, I've been helping my mother to do her tax returns. She does not pay federal taxes as her income is too low but she is required to pay Michigan state income tax and property taxes. Every year she gets a tax refund of several hundred dollars. As someone on a fixed income, that's important.     

     We filed her taxes early in February and waited. In the past her refund has come usually within a month, certainly within two months. When after two months, so refund check had been directly deposited into her account. I began to worry. Still, she hadn't been contacted to say there was a problem or that I'd done something incorrectly. So we waited another month.     

     It's now May, three months later with no refund and no contact. Time to investigate. I started by doing what government bureaucracies always tell citizens to do when they have problems. Don't contact them directly. Go on-line where the State of Michigan says there is a wealth of information to help you out as well as a way to inquire about your tax refund.     I inquired about the refund on-line and instantly got the response that they couldn't find the return in their files. Wonderful. 

      Next step was to call the tax assistance line where, they claim, you can speak to a live representative. And here is where the quest becomes a descent into hell. Actually, I think it's probably easier to call hell and get the devil on the phone. And he'd probably be more helpful too.     

     The first couple times I called, the line was busy. Finally I got through and got their automatic menu. In a very slow-talking voice, the recording asked me to enter the year of the tax return, the adjusted gross income, my mother's social security number and a couple other details. I was then told that the return is under review with a completion date of April 16. That was over a month ago. 

      Now it said if I needed to talk to a live representative to a key on the keypad. I did that and was immediately told that all the representatives were busy helping other callers. Bye. End of transmission.     

     So I called another day. In order to even have the opportunity to even TRY to speak to a live person, you have to go through the same time-consuming routine of listening to the recorded drawl, entering all the tax information, hearing that the tax return is still stuck in time somewhere in the middle of April, then waiting to hear if there's a representative who can explain when Back to the Future's Michael J. Fox can go back to April to retrieve my mother's tax return. And again hearing that all representatives are too busy.

      This exercise in futility repeated itself many times. To use another movie allusion, I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.     

     Finally, I heard a recording that indicated that I would be able to speak to a live person. Yea. My wait would be 30 to 35 minutes. When I finally got on the line, I explained that I was calling on behalf of my mother. I said how I did her tax return but it was stuck in limbo, or perhaps even hell I thought again. He asked if I had power of attorney over my mother's affairs. No. I don't think you need power of attorney to help someone fill out a tax form. I'm pretty sure Turbo Tax doesn't come with power of attorney. Was my name on the return? No, as I'm not a paid preparer. I'm just a family volunteer helping my mother navigate the 70-page Michigan tax return and fill out the ten pages necessary to get my 93-year-old mother the money she is owed.     

     Well, then he can't tell me anything. Not without my mother's permission. What? Do I need to bring a written note from my mother to Lansing? He suggested I could include her on a conference call. Seriously? My mother doesn't have a computer let alone a cell phone or anything else that would get the three of us on the same telephone line. As long as he's suggesting the impossible, why don't we include my deceased father on the same conference call so we can have his input as well.     

     But, hey! I had an idea. I was calling on my wife's cell phone. I could call my mother right then as we had a land-line and she could verbally give me permission to discuss her return. At first, the thought that would be okay, but then he added that she would need to recall details from her return, as in what was her adjusted gross income. Oh yeah. Every 93-year-old elderly senior has probably memorized every detail on their 10-page return. That wasn't going to work. Bottom line. I couldn't find out why my mother's tax return was stuck in the past.     

     So I passed the baton to my sister who, unlike me, lives close to my mother and could call from her house. But I had the copy of the tax return in question so I gave her the adjusted gross income and whatever other pertinent details the tax representative might ask about. With my mother at her side, my sister went through all the same motions I did to get a representative on the phone. It took over an hour of waiting and when she finally got a live person on the phone, it DID turn out to be the representative from hell.     

     She refused to talk to my sister at all despite my mother being right there. When my mother finally got on the line, my mother gave her name and social security number to verify her identity. Then the representative began asking her detailed questions about her tax return, Was she single or head of household? My mother correctly guessed single though she didn't know what the difference would be.     

     Then the representative asked what my mother later recalled was her "gross national income." Of course, she didn't know that off the top of her head, and asked my sister who was right there to give her that information. That was a mortal sin in the eyes of the devil, er, the representative of our Michigan state government. And she hung up on my poor mother and sister.     

     So my mother's tax return and refund remains in limbo. And I'm very upset. I really would like to tell somebody off. Hey. I have an idea. I think I could do a decent impression of a 93-year-old woman. I could call that tax hotline and pretend to be my mother. I could really give them the business. "Tell your crooked friend down in Lansing that they've held on to my money long enough. If I don't see that money in the bank very soon I'm going to come there and raise some hell, the same kind you people have been putting me and my family through."

Has It Been Six Years?

      It's hard to believe that it's been six years already since our lives were thrown off kilter by Covid. Those were some scary times as the virus swept across the globe despite best efforts to keep it contained. I keep a daily journal and recently read my entries from that time. My notes reminded me of the sadness and helplessness we felt at times, but also of the strength and togetherness we experienced as well. Following are some of my journal entries beginning in March of 2020:

     (March 3) The coronavirus is spreading but not in Michigan yet . . . (March 6) Twenty one people on the cruise ship The Grand Princess have tested positive for the coronavirus. Could have been us three months ago when we sailed aboard that ship . . . (March 7) No handshakes or communal wine at church today. More coronavirus fall-out . . . (March 9) Italy is totally quarantined . . .(March 11) The virus has arrived in Michigan. St. Pats Day parade canceled. Ma called asking for no family visits right now. . . (March 12) Schools in Michigan closed for three weeks. Huge lines at Meijer's grocery store . . . (March 13) Coronavirus, AKA Covid-19, has closed the recreation center, the library, even masses at our church. We're not even allowed to return the DVD we borrowed from the library . . .

     (March 16) Michigan bars and restaurants are closing . . . (March 17) "Are you joking?" the Meijer checkout clerk said when we asked for hand sanitizer after using their pen to sign a check. . . (March 19) The dentist called to cancel next week's appointment. The state's reported Covid cases have tripled since yesterday . . . (March 23) Ordered postage stamps on-line, a first for me. Governor Whitmer has ordered us to shelter in place . . . (March 24) Senior hour at Meijer was a madhouse. My hopes that they would have hard-to-find items didn't come to pass. No toilet paper, no hand sanitizer, not even any isopropyl alcohol . . . (March 26) Nearly 3,000 Covid cases in Michigan with 92 in Washtenaw County. . .(March 29) T.P. at Busch's Valuland. Score! Successfully skyped with family in St. Louis. Another score! Dad says neighbor came by flashing hand signs asking if they need anything.

     (April 2) On a bike ride today I saw this message etched with chalk on the sidewalk--"In this together." . . . (April 4) CDC advises masks now. I saw people wearing masks as they jogged or rode bicycles. . .  (April 7) Over 12,000 Covid deaths in U.S. . . . (April 9) Governor extended her stay-at-home order until April 30th. It would have expired Monday. Wendy and I constructed Covid face masks . . . (April 12) A different Easter. Pork tenderloin dinner for just Wendy and me. We dropped off the grandboys' Easter baskets. Skyped with our other son's family in St. Louis. . . (April 13) Andrea Bocelli's Music for Hope concert was very moving. I watched the replay this morning . . . (April 17) Trump tweeted, "Liberate Michigan." But we're still in lockdown . . . (April 18) We finally got the face masks that cousin Vickie made for us. She mailed them two weeks ago

     April 20 Sad moment on my walk yesterday when I saw a couple standing in the grass outside a local nursing home trying to talk through the glass window to the resident within . . . (April 23) First live sports event in over a month--the NFL draft. . . (April 24) . . . Getting our daily Tim Horton coffee is hit or miss. In Saline, they're open till 2 p.m. In one Tim Horton's in Ann Arbor, they're open till 3 p.m. and the other Tim Horton is closed altogether . . . (April 26) Masks are mandatory when shopping now . . . (April 29) Our church called today to see if we're doing okay . . . ((May 5) One-way aisles for shopping at Meijer. No chicken yet--the meat industry has been hobbled by plant closures-- but hand sanitizer is there now. . . (May 7) Governor Whitmer has extended the stay-home order until May 23. . . (May 22) City Diner has breakfast take-out. Just opened. President Trump is ordering governors to let all churches open. The basketball rims were re-attached to backboards at the local park. They had been removed because of Covid to discourage playing

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How Many Books?

    Our local library is currently sponsoring a 1,000 books before kindergarten program. It's where families read books to their babies, toddlers or otherwise pre-schoolers in an effort to prepare them for kindergarten. That's where I come in as a volunteer to tutor kindergartners in reading.

    Teachers set up a desk in the hall and one-by-one the students come out and read from either a book the teacher has provided or a book that the student brings from home. I help them sound out words or give them encouragement as they learn the complexities of the English language.

    It sounds straightforward and often it is as the kindergartners know the drill. But every kid is different and I never know quite what to expect. After one kindergartner came out and took a seat at our shared desk, I push the assigned book in front of him and ask him to read.

    “No, you read it,” he said, pushing the book back at me. I did get him to eventually try reading but the book, which was scrounged up by a substitute teacher, turned out to be an advanced reader which the first few students struggled mightily to read. I eventually gave up and got a different book though students sometimes came out with their own books they brought from home.

    That should have made reading easier for kids.  Then one book a kindergartner pulled out described an insect called a “morpho butterfly.” I don't think morpho butterfly belongs in a beginning to read book for a number of reasons. One, the word morpho is not a word that you would encounter anywhere else as it only is ONLY used to describe the morpho butterfly. And the morpho butterfly is not even native to the United States though it can only be found in Central and South America.

    When I asked one boy to read, he announced, “I can't read. My mouth hurts.” That was a new one on me. I asked him to try though and he read fine. Another boy said he needed to finish quickly as the class right now was having playtime and he didn't want to miss all of that. I told him to try to read more quickly. He rolled his eyes and complained, “But the words are getting harder.”

    That wasn't true however as the book used pretty much the same words over and over. I did read a couple pages myself to help speed things along so he could get to playtime. Once in a while I'll get a student who is more interested in chatting that reading. One little girl started out by talking about the lunch her mother packed for her. Naturally I had to ask what she was having.

    She said her mother made her her favorite donuts, Arabic donuts. I thought I misunderstood what she was saying but there actually are Arabic donuts.  This little girl went on to say, "I can speak Japanese. But I can't do it today." That was fine as I had more students to help read.

       And the book the students all read the most had quite a few pages. One student after finishing leafed through the book and said, "I can't believe I readed all these pages." I guess that was a teachable moment. I could have explained the tenses involved with the word read. But I figured that was a lesson for another day and another senior volunteer.