Write what you know, they say. Well, what I know during the first quarter of every year is that tax season makes us all nuts. Ergo, you are going to see several posts related to taxes over the coming weeks. It’ll be like the 12 days of Christmas, except without the dancing ladies and the pear trees.
Which, arguably, may be an upside for those of us who never understood why you would want a bunch of dancing ladies to appear in one’s courtyard, wrecking the hydrangeas and scaring the horses. Maybe it’s your thing, I don’t know. More power to you.
Back to taxes, though. For those of us with ‘regular’ employment, the W-2 is the keystone of any one tax return. Bully for you if you have a bunch of 1099 dividend income from your trust fund that means you can set up shop in a coffee shop and pretend to work while the rest of us need to go to a real office. Or bedroom. Or little desk wedged between the fish tank and kitchen table.
Argh! You know what I mean: everyone who is supposed to GET a W-2 generally understands that there isn’t much point in starting to think about taxes until after you have RECEIVED your W-2. And for reasons that continue to make no sense at all, we as a society persist in dropping the single most important piece of paper of an individual’s whole year into a mailbox Every Single Year and expect it gets to the intended recipient.
What really happens? Chaos.
“Bounce-back” is the term for any piece of mail that is returned to sender (my office) after the post office has failed to successfully deliver to the intended recipient. This is no big deal when you find out because of a Christmas card bounce-back that your Aunt Lucy moved without your permission and didn't seek you out personally to provide an updated address. This is more annoying when it is someone’s W-2. And there is always a bounced W-2. Always.
Those bounce-backs get collected as they reappear at our office and set aside, notes made in files regarding the returned W-2, and we generally wait until the contractor calls to see where the heck their W-2 is, at which point we mail it again or let them stop by and pick it up. I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt to the masses and say that most people call, apologize for forgetting to update their address, and we end on pleasant terms. We like those people. Alas, most people are not those people. Most people are typically quite unpleasant when they are calling to find out where their missing W-2 is.
I recently fielded a call from a very irate character wondering where his W-2 was. Pulling up his file, I saw the note indicating his W-2 had bounced back to our office.
For the second time.
After the contractor had supposedly given us his updated address.
The ensuing conversation:
Me: It looks like your W-2 was returned to our office again.
Miffed Guy (MG): What do you mean, returned?
Me: The post office wasn't able to deliver it for whatever reason. Would you like to come by the office to pick it up instead?
MG: Why can't you just mail it?
Me: We did. Twice. It came back. Twice. Obviously there's something wrong with the address you gave us. Twice. It would probably be best if you just came to pick it up since we've gotten two different address from you and neither were deliverable according to USPS.
We agreed he would stop by around noon the next day.
I was, of course, very busy the next day around noon and therefore cannot report any further developments in the story.
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