

Ask HN: Self Employed NYers, anyone getting bogus tax bills? - bowline_nc

A little venting, but I'm really curious if anyone else out there has had these problems.<p>I was a self employed consultant in NY for 4-5 years and this is the third time in so many years that NY State has said I did not pay my taxes in years past (when I did pay).  The first time, it was a pain but I was scared that I had forgotten to.  The second time, I got a little pissed off.  This third time, I'm irate and sensing a pattern - it seems like they're just losing my taxes and hoping that I'll pay it again and blindly.<p>The onus is on me to prove that I paid, so I've had to request old bank records and match up check amounts, numbers, and when they cleared.  Even then, I have to spend hours on the phone navigating bureaucracy in order to get this cleared out.<p>I'm just curious if any other self employed folks have run into this and how they've handled it.  It's becoming a yearly pain in the ass at best and pretty damn shady at its worst.<p>Thanks!
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apaprocki
Yes, NY seems to place the onus on you so they can attempt to turn up more tax
revenue that was not filed by mistake. I moved from PHL to NYC in 2003 and
when I filed NY state taxes in 2004, I got a _bill_ for my estimated taxes in
2003 based upon my current income. They assumed that I had lived in NY in 2003
and had not filed any taxes even though it was not the case. I had to send
them a copy of my 2003 tax return showing that I was 100% out-of-state and
then they dropped it.

If you think about it from a programmer point of view, their system detected
me perfectly (whether or not they should be doing this is a separate issue),
and once it knew 2004 was the first year I was a state resident, it left me
alone. If you are constantly getting these, I'd guess that _something_ is
wrong in your computer record, causing it to not see your returns and to keep
going after you.

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bowline_nc
Yeah, I knew there was something wrong with my record, but was assured last
year that it was corrected (for a second time). With a third instance, I just
wanted to make sure that I was the only one.

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ehsanu1
Sounds like filing away some documentation when you do your taxes would be a
simple solution to this annoying problem. But I'm not self employed, so what
do I know.

