In order to pass my math requirement in college, I depended on Brother Bea to program HIS scientific calculator with the various things that people need to pass Calculus and Trigonometry (see? I'm so dumb I don't even know what the things are called!)
Have I mentioned that Brother Bea is 3 years below my in school? Meaning that he was still in his baby years of HIGH SCHOOL when I was having him program the calculator for me?? He smart, me dumb. And to this day, anytime I have a math-related question, I turn to him. Keep this in mind.
Now, onto the rest of my post:
So if you've been reading my last few tweets, you'll know that I've been fighting with the State of California over my taxes. Basically, they say I owe money from when I worked there during the campaign season, and I say I do not.
Here's a bit of backstory: I LOVE tax season. I know, I'm a freak. But I LOVE doing my taxes...I find something very soothing about it. It should be noted that I still use the EZ and short forms of nearly all my taxes because I have no investments or anything that will one day make me want to pull my hair out/cringe and hide under a rock during tax time. My taxes are usually easy-peasy.
Except every other year.
Because every other year I get a wild hair up my bum and decided to take off for exotic lands like Racine, Wisconsin or East Bay, California for a campaign.
And then my taxes get a bit tricky.
In 2006 I had to file in Wisconsin, DC, and Virginia (stupid House of Reps didn't process my change of address from August 2005!) Everything worked out fine and I ended up owing a minuscule amount to DC, but getting all of VA (rightfully) refunded and almost all of Wisconsin back too. YAY me!
And then 2008 tax season came around.
I ended up having to file in both DC and CA...which from the looks of things, should have been easier than 2006. But no, not it isn't.
My dear home state of Cali decided that not only do you need to fill out your regular, non-resident taxes (not online, I might add) but you also have to fill out a ridiculously complicated adjustment schedule form...which was 2 pages of charts and nonsense.
But I got it done and mailed in on time. YAY me!
And then I got a letter last week, stating that CA had redone my taxes (sidenote: seriously? You redid my taxes?? why not just do them for me in the first place next time and tell me how much I'm getting back??? SHEESH!) and found a discrepancy, and now I owe then $200.
Needless to say this did not make me happy and I spent the better part of an hour cursing my state to anyone who would listen (Florida.)
I gathered all my necessary tax documents (luckily still not properly filed away and laying on my bedroom floor) and prepared to do battle.
I spent much time yesterday trying to call and was greeted with the lovely message that they were talking to too many other people and I would just have to try back again later. Over and over again.
So today, I regathered my resolve and tax forms and called. I got through! This in itself was a major victory! I was determined to take my complaint to the Governator if I had to. I was not going to pay CA any more money!!!
So the wonderful woman on the other end, Agent 352357 or something, spent over an hour going over line by line with my, trying to figure out where they had gone wrong (she never said that they were right and I was wrong - she assumed that I was right and they made a mistake.) I could understand her words completely, and when they didn't make sense to me (because the tax forms are ridiculous!) she tried several different ways of explaining until
Finally, it got down to this: I had to read to her line by line the numbers I had for BOTH FORMS so she could figure out what went wrong.
So line by line we went.
Through the entire forms.
We narrowed it down to a problem with the standard deduction percentage. WHY the standard deduction would vary from person to person when it was supposed to be a STANDARD deduction still boggles my mind, but whatevs. We knew the problem was there.
And then I hear this come from her mouth:
I think, on Part 4 line 47, you divided the numbers in the wrong order.
Which to me sounded much like:
garbledegook garbledegook math math math.
To which she further explained:
You needed to divide the little number by the big number, and you divided the big number by the little number.
YES. She said big numbers and little numbers, as if I was seriously in 2nd grade learning math...
...and she was right.
I now owe The Great State of California $202.13 because remembering which number goes into the calculator first, even after asking several times, when it says "divide line x by line y" is hard.
FAIL blog anyone?
Hope your Tuesday is cheaper than mine has become...
Cheers,
Sweet Bea
