If At First You Don't Succeed...

Forgive me, but tonight, I'm really in one terrible mood.

I try not to believe in Murphy's Law as being the ruling force of the world, but indeed, there are days when it gets harder and harder not to see things in that light.

My nerves are totally frazzled. I've been reading some stuff on line about the IRS and some of their absurd rulings -trying to comprehend them and all it's doing for me right now is giving me a severe case of eye strain and rubbing my eyes too, because they are also itching like crazy is causing more redness there as well as a whole hell of a lot of swelling under the eyes -puffiness, galore. Enough that all the best eye creams in the world would have a tough job of making that puffiness and redness tone down a bit.

My day yesterday started out calm enough but quickly started to go downhill when, as I was getting ready to take a shower, I had the water running in the vanity sink to take care of some other things when suddenly the flow went from a nice steady stream to barely even a trickle. I heard some strange noises -kind of like a spigot being turns off suddenly and very hard but thought at first it was just Mandy, running water in the kitchen sink. I called out to her and she said she had run a little water but was through now. (In our house, you can't use to water-related items -like the kitchen sink and commode or tub or vanity sink simultaneously or you lose the heat factor of the "hot" water.) But this was different. I had lost the volume of water. And after I took my shower and went to brush my teeth, that water volume still was gone in the vanity spigot.

So, that meant this item would go on the list of "broken things" for the son-in-law to tend to when he got home from work tonight.

Then, I had an appointment with my doctor -a regular check-up, Pap test and setting up an appointment for the annual mammogram as well. No big deal I thought until prior to the Pap test, the nurse gave me a paper to read and sign as to whether I wanted the doctor to proceed with doing the Pap test because, you see, there is now a wave going through Social Security apparently in which they are trying to curb the number of Pap tests being administered or some such thing like that by denying payment at times for these valuable tests -which do save many, many lives, ya know. Seems they think perhaps these tests are being administered too frequently so there was a chance that SS (think medicare) might not cover this test and if so, I would be responsible then for paying $103 for having had said test. Hmmm. I went through a big hassle last year when my regular Pap test showed some bad cells, so my doctor ordered another test which also showed pretty much the same results and I was then referred on to a specialist to delve into this matter further. Eventually, it was determined what the cause was -and it was ruled to be rather inconsequential -eventually -but because I had two pap tests in less than a year, my insurance wanted to deny payment. Eventually, things did get squared away there when the insurance company realized it was because further testing had been required in my case but it took a lot of paperwork flying back and forth before that decision was reached. Sheesh. Pap tests aren't that bad to endure but still, how many women would ask to have more of them than are absolutely needed? So much for the idea of wanting to abuse the insurance systems at work here by having more tests than they feel are needed, ya know.

But anyway, everything else went along nicely with my doctor visit today and I returned home in a fairly good humor. But that was to come to an abrupt halt then when Mandy opened a letter from her bank which stated that the IRS has put a levy on the checking accounts she and her husband have, along with the very meager (and boy, I do mean VERY MEAGER) savings accounts in Maya's name and one in the 17-year-old's name too. Of course, since they are both minors, that means an adult's name must be one those accounts and that adult name in each case is Mandy's.

All of this harks back to an issue with the son-in-law and his ex-wife and a house they had purchased but which, when they couldn't get it sold, they signed it back over to the finance company so they could move on. Or so they thought anyway.

But do you know that if you do that, the money you are no longer owing somehow is computed by the IRS then and is configured as "INCOME" and taxable?

Yep, it is. I'm probably doing a poor job of explaining all that junk but that's simply because I don't follow the logic of the IRS in this action -not at all.

Anyway, because of that, the son-in-law owes the IRS money. When the kids had their taxes done this past spring, the IRS swooped in and confiscated their entire refund to apply it to this past due taxation thing. But it wasn't enough to pay the whole debt off so now, they are holding their checking accounts hostage, trying to abscond with every penny of their income for this month and next month as well in order to pay off this debt to the government.

What I've read about this procedure thus far it does say that the IRS has to give a notice to individuals when they are going to do this by sending them a certified letter to let them know about their plans. However, they screwed up and never sent said certified letter -or if they did send it, it was never received, never signed for then.

So that is -as far as I am concerned -pretty much the last straw in my thoughts about the wonderful IRS and their actions.

I need to try to calm down, get some sleep (hopefully), rest my eyes so I can see to try and read more of their claptrap on line, help Mandy find some legal help to at least return some smidgen of income to the kids so they won't get hit then with bouncing checks that were already written and in process when this notice arrived. And that's just for openers.

The mood here tonight then, as you can imagine, is pretty damned dismal.

How can they expect someone who is self-employed as my son-in-law is -and struggling to get his business off the ground and showing any profit at all - if the IRS freezes up his checking account for his business?

Which brings me to thinking again about the big bailout of the banks and Wall Street -and the auto industry too -wonder if the son-in-law could qualify to receive assistance from those programs, huh?

Well, that would involve mega bucks though and what they owe is just "small potatoes" by comparison to that money spent but when you're already broke, then those small potatoes suddenly are more like giant boulders in your way, aren't they?

I know -poor comparison, lousy logic, on my part. But right now, that is pretty much how unfair I feel this whole situation is. After all, if he were making the big bucks to begin with, he could probably qualify for a program like this and then, give himself a big raise in income to cover everything and anything he and my daughter would need, couldn't he?

Just another way the government seems intent on making the little people even smaller, isn't it?

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a brighter day. Ya think?