Only in Messychusetts…

Oops! State Bills Taxpayers Twice

Now, it turned out that we’ll be getting a whopping $78 refund from Deval Patrick, so we were not affected by this.  But you can bet that if we WERE affected, I’d be going totally ballistic right now.  How much do you want to bet that the state will be taking their sweet old time getting all of these people their money back?  It will be interesting to see how long it actually takes, as well as how long it will take for them to cover late fees, overdraft fees and such, as they claim they will.

Sorry, but I just have a hard time trusting the government.  Can you blame me?

Maybe it’s a good thing that Mike still insists on filing our taxes the good, old-fashioned way…on PAPER.  So, if we did indeed owe Deval Patrick some money towards his new Cadillac fund, we’d have sent a check, rather than e-filed.  And then we’d not have been affected by this.

It sort of makes me scared about the bills I DO pay online.  The utility bills have always been in my name, since I lived in this place long before Mike came along.  So we just kept it that way, and now I take care of making the payments to Verizon, National Grid, and Keyspan.  I do them all online, because I’m VERY bad at writing checks and getting them mailed out.  I do not use the auto-pay feature, because I want to be able to control as to WHEN the money comes out of the account.  So I log in every month and pay the bills manually.

Yesterday, I paid all three, to the tune of around $260.  Now, I’m thinking about what would happen if any or all of those got double-billed.  Unless Mike spent money that I don’t know about, we do have enough of a cushion for a double-billing.  But what about people who DON’T have such a cushion?  I can certainly see how something like this can cause a LOT of problems  for a LOT of people.

So far, we have never been double-billed for any of the utilities.  I probably shouldn’t say that too loud, though.  But still, it disturbs me that this problem has to happen to anyone in the first place.  I’m sure these people feel helpless, that their money, that they possibly need to buy food or gas or some other frivolous item, is being held hostage by the government.  I know I’d feel that way if it were me.

So, I will let Mike continue to do the taxes the old-fashioned way.  It’s safer that way!