We have all heard the phrase, work smarter, not harder. Apparently the State of North Carolina take the opposite view.
Last month I filed a tax report that had a problem. It was my mistake. I accidentally counted some money for the wrong month. I thought I owed $434 and had already filled out the form when I realized my mistake. The tax belonged to a different month. I really owed nothing for the month. The form is pre-filled from a booklet, so there was no spare. I didn't really think anything of it; I just crossed out the amount and wrote zero. It made the form ugly, but hey, all it said was "0" anyway.
The response from the state was ridiculous. Apparently the forms are read by a machine, which could not make out my scratched up correction. I can understand that, and as previously admitted, that was my fault entirely.
However, their reaction is just plain stupid. If the machine can't read the form, it should just go into a pile for human processing. Any reasonable human being -- or even a state employee -- could read the form. They would also have been able to verify the non-existence of the check to pay the $0 amount.
But why do the quick and easy thing? Instead, it apparently goes into a pile for human non-processing. Rather than simply reading the form and entering the information, they read the form and generated a whole new form -- by hand -- saying that the machine couldn't read my form. After filling out the form they sent the whole thing back to me (at taxpayer expense) with a blank form for me to fill out...with another 0.
My guess is, there is a full-time position in the "I can't read this form" department just to take care of this sort of thing. The persons job is to ignore the simple solution to the problem, create a bunch of new paperwork, and cost the taxpayers money.
The next thing I'm looking forward to is a fine for late filing a form with a zero on it. That will be a joy!
