Being Amber Rhea

(I originally wrote this in an email, but then I decided, hey, I should just put it up as a blog post.)

I read something a while back from radfem blogger (damned if I can remember who it was; I’ll have to go Googling) talking about how she was a conscientious objector to taxes, and she got so pissed because her dad ended up paying her taxes for her.

:|

Okay first of all, how do you get away w/ not paying taxes? I’m sorry, but the IRS sure as shit knew about it when I forgot to include one of my W-2s in 2004. (Took ‘em almost two years to contact me, but they did eventually!) And that was for a relatively paltry sum.

And, plus… sure, it sucks that some of our tax money goes to fund things like the war… but I really do think it’s like voting. Don’t vote? Don’t complain. I pay taxes and that makes me even more invested in caring about where that money goes. If I could, I’d divide it out and tell the government, “Give all my tax dollars to social services and education, NOT the war.” But, I can’t. So I do what little I can.

Grrrr.

You might’ve noticed that lately (past week or so), I haven’t been posting as much, and when I do, it’s not deep meaningful important stuff. Part of it is that I’ve been really busy, but part of it is that I’ve been in… well, it’s hard to describe the kind of state I’ve been in. I wanted to say “blogger doldrums,” but that’s accurate only to a point. Because it has also spilled over into my off-blog life, with these nagging existential questions about why we’re here and what does it all mean and how can I be happy when so many people are suffering - hovering around my mind and refusing to STFU. I don’t like the nagging of those voices, the constant not-by-choice Life Pondering.

You’re probably reading this and going, “What the hell is she talking about?” Well, I said it was hard to describe. I’m doing the best I can here, people!

Really, I should just defer to Belledame… remember that whole brevity/wit thing? It’s true. Here’s what she said:

the sheer density in the universe is getting me down

Word.

And, this is particularly weird and annoying because in many ways, I feel better now than I have in a long time. Things are going generally well in my life - I’m having fun and doing cool stuff; yes, I’m working a lot of hours, but I’m happy to be at this job rather than the previous two; Rusty is awesome; I’m not getting overly stressed out about minor things (most of the time!); and so on. And yet… in the back of my mind are these thoughts that won’t leave me alone. Thoughts about poor, working class, and middle class people who can’t afford dental care because the healthcare situation in this country sucks; rape victims getting treated like shit and put through the wringer while psychopath cops walk free; white people deciding they’re the arbiters of what is and isn’t racist; general assholish behavior taking new forms each day; and the WAR, my god, the war!!

It’s too much to handle. I can’t do anything to change any of this, not little old me, by myself. Say what you will, but honestly I can’t. Yeah, I can donate money (which I do, when I have enough to donate), raise awareness, blah blah… but I can’t wave a magic wand and make every U.S. citizen suddenly have comprehensive health coverage. And then I get angry and don’t know what to do with that anger; nowhere to put it. I start to feel selfish (in the bad way) for caring about the things I care about that suddenly seem frivolous in comparison (podcasting, for example); and then soon enough, the “OH WHY ARE WE HERE” track kicks in and I get all scared of death; and I try to tell myself, well, it doesn’t really matter why we’re here; we ARE, and we might as well do something fun with our time here. -And that leads me back to the thing about other people suffering, so how dare I have fun when they can’t…

And so on.

Yes, this post is boring as shit to read, I’m sure, and non-congruous at that. But I’m rambling. I guess, my conundrum is… I want to remove bad energy (that sounds really hippy-dippy, but deal) from my life as much as possible, but then I feel selfish for wanting that. Like, oh, isn’t it nice that I have the privilege and comfort to even be thinking about such things and making the decision not to read about THE WAR because the photos of limbless children upset me. Well what about the limbless children, they can’t make that choice!!

And so on, some more.

Eh. So that’s where I am, currently. Hopefully soon I’ll get back to my blog-positive self. In the meantime I will focus on fucking Rusty as much as possible, because that always makes me happy, and all the other cares and concerns just melt away.

I will leave you with an anecdote:

A minor disaster was averted today. When I did my taxes this weekend, I accidentally designated $500 of my tax refund to go on Starbucks gift cards. (!!!!) I called TurboTax customer service, and fortunately they were able to fix it. So, even though their interface for selecting gift cards is confusing, TurboTax gets a thumbs-up from me in the customer service division (just not the UI division). I mean, I love Starbucks, but that is insane.

The IRS’s online “electronic federal tax payment system” sucks. I know I shouldn’t be surprised. But for whatever reason, I always harbor a sliver of hope with these things, even when I should know better.

The hoops you have to jump through just to get a PIN are kind of a pain, but I can understand that because it’s sensitive personal tax information. Still, there’s no reason the user interface of the system should look like something a 16-year-old playing with Frontpage cooked up. The documentation they sent me in the mail is utterly unhelpful, as well. I sent a payment, but I don’t have a damn clue if I even did it correctly. And you know, I have a fucking Master’s degree, and if I can’t figure this shit out? Well… I just get the feeling they are trying to make things as difficult and complicated as possible, so they can screw people even further.

Also, I thought I was going to be signed up for automatic payments. But I don’t see anywhere to do that in their online system. I wrote them a letter last month asking about it, after they tried to charge me a “late fee” after they sent the payment notification two days before it was due… I have yet to hear anything.

Oh and one other thing… when I called to get my “initial web password” from the automated phone system, it said the letters and then a word it’s used in… you know, how people say “B as in boy.” Only the IRS robo-phone-voice said, “W as in whiskey; K as in kilo.” I shit you not!!

The Georgia Dept. of Revenue sent me a weird, random letter demanding that I show up at their office in Athens on June 12th to produce “sales and use” documentation for Tangerine Computer Services. There was also a “payment envelope included for [my] convenience,” but no dollar amount anywhere.

Now, if you’ve known me for a while, you might know that TCS hasn’t existed since roundabout 2002 (but the domain lives on, as you can see).

Obviously I cannot go to Athens on June 12th. I called the number (they actually had someone’s direct line, with their name listed) and left an earnest voice mail last night, and now I wait.

The timing of all this just seems extremely weird. I’m trying not to get paranoid. Last night at dinner Rusty mentioned that if the government wanted to silence all the dissenters, a great way to do it would be to sic the IRS on them.

I don’t know wtf this is about and I hope to get it resolved as soon as possible, because Tangerine Computer Services has been defunct for years and I cannot take much more stress-inducing shit being piled on.

Looks like I’m not the only one who owes the IRS money… so does our esteemed governor.

Tax returns reviewed by the newspaper for the past four years show Perdue got a refund in 2002 and 2003, but owed $95,000 in state and federal taxes in 2004 and $138,000 in 2005. Perdue’s net worth is more than $6 million, according to the financial disclosure report he filed Monday. … Before becoming governor in 2003, he incurred penalties for seven consecutive years for underpaying federal taxes and penalties for underpaying state taxes for six of the previous seven years.

I don’t feel quite so bad now, since I only owe in the triple digits, and I’m not an elected official.