Philadelphia...

The saga begins.

Don't know why but I couldn't sleep this morning so I gave the lovely city's revenue department a call. Of course, simply because I was awake at 5am and feeling good, Tuesday is the new day that they don't answer the phone until 10am. (Probably a staff meeting.)

So I went out for a bit of a walk from 5:45am to 6:30am. Nothing big, couple of pictures of the Capitol during sunrise. Thought about going to the coffee shop but that seemed extreme since I really had no reason to be caffeinated before 9am.

So at 7am (PST) I give the City of Philadelphia a call. Only 25min on hold, not too bad. And then the stupidity begins.


Agent: "What can I do for you today?"
Me: "Well, I just received a Delinquent Tax notice for 2009. I don't understand why."
Agent: "Let's look up your file.... Well, it looks like you paid $6 to the city and owe another $52."
Me: "Oooookay. So, I don't understand. I don't live in Philadelphia and I only worked there for a week. My company withheld $$$ for the locality of Philadelphia, I don't know why I would owe more."
Agent: "Well, if your employer withheld the funds then why did you file a School Income Tax form."
Me: "I don't have any record that I did. And the form online says specifically not to file if my W-2 shows withholdings."
Agent: "Let me go check on something... " (5min later) "We have a scan of your 2009 School Income Tax form on file, prepared by Joe Smith." (names have been changed to protect the annoying)
Me: "Yeah, that's my tax preparer. Great. So what do I do now?"
Agent: "Well, you need to amend the return with all zeros then use a Change form to close your account."
ME: "And that'll clear up the Delinquency?"
Agent: "Yes."
Me: "Great! Thank you."

So I went through all my paperwork again. Sure enough I found the Copy of the one form for Philadelphia, it says nothing about being a School Income Tax form, just that it's for the City of Philadelphia. And what I signed has absolutely no numbers on it. Information for identifying me, my preparer's info and a blank form. How is this different than entering all zeros?

Why don't we all just pay 33.33% off the top.

I hate the tax code. I hate that there are multiple levels of it. And I hate that I, as an individual, am responsible for my taxes when a company hires me to work in another state for as little as one week.

I don't want to talk to the City of Philadelphia about 2009. I don't want to prove to them how stupid their employees are or how poorly their computer tracks information but Tuesday morning I'm going to and god help whoever is on the other end of the line 'cause they are going to need a new eardrum if they try to tell me that any of this mess was in anyway my fault. The F*%&ing form says that I shouldn't have filed it!

See Highlighted Blue Text in Image.

The tax they say I didn't pay was withheld according to the W-2 that was filed with the state of PA. Do they not talk to each other. Because if someone prints on an official form (that is still available online) "Don't fill me out, it'll just be a waste of time", guess what, I'm not gonna fill it out.