That was and is Scary!
October 29th, 2008
This has already been the week from hell. Yesterday I totaled my new ‘99 Tahoe, and today I accessed my checking account online, and found that it was negative $1,000! What the heck?
So I look into the details and I have a court ordered lien on my account for almost $3,000. This wiped out my checking, and savings account I use for overdraft protection, and incurred about a dozen NSF fees at $35 a piece. Great, I thought. What the hell is this all about. I owed the IRS a bit of money after last year, and set up a payment plan with them so that couldn’t be it. After calling them, they confirmed this. So who could it be? I don’t owe anyone money or anything.
At lunch I went to the bank to find out what the hell was going on. It turns out the Texas Comptroller’s Office put the lien on my account. Now here comes the scary part. Back in June I set up a business to sell fireworks. After applying for the necessary Tax ID number, I decided against it, and never sent in the required signature form. So I was never issued a Tax ID, or permit to conduct business. I also never conducted any business.
I thought the matter was over with seeing as how I never completed the process. I was wrong on that thought. A couple of weeks ago I got a sales tax bill for $200. Having not collected or filed any returns I was puzzled and made an inquiry to the government office in question. They replied that they could close the account, and asked me to send my ID number on the letter I received. I did that last week, and left Thursday night for our anniversary trip. We went camping and came back Monday.
Well apparently, they neither closed the account, or canceled the supposed fee. Instead they decided that I somehow owed them $2,343 and somehow got a government order to seize the money in my savings and checking accounts! So, the government provided no form of due process for me, no intent to levy letter or anything like that, and arbitrarily decided it would be OK to steal $2,300 out of a private citizens personal account.
This is unbelievable to me. Of course they have reversed the levy after I called and raised hell with them. How this is legal is beyond me however. The bank is going to try to get my NSFs cancelled, so that is good. What a complete nightmare and pain in the ass though. It scares me that the government can just come in and seize whatever they want, whether they are owed it or not.
Categories: Freedom, Life, Politics | Tags: civil rights
Yikes. You could move to Massachusetts to get that sort of thing. Don’t crush my hopes of someday retiring to the American part of this country!