Tag Archives | Financial Saga

FOLLOW-UP TO YESTERDAY’S POST

NOW READ THIS LATEST UPDATE.

After endless wrangling on the phone today I was just informed ten minutes ago, to my amazement, that this levy was not from the Alabama Department of Revenue but from a 20-year-old credit card I believed I’d paid off long ago. (I certainly haven’t received any calls or mail from them, let alone notice of a court order.)

This is in direct contradiction of what I was told yesterday and of the printed document they gave me that distinctly says “tax levy.” (I can provide people with a copy of the document if anyone wants to see it; I don’t want anyone thinking that I’ve been raising money under false pretenses.) Apparently Wachovia itself had been under the impression that it was a tax levy, and only when I finally got through to the creditor’s attorney did I find out otherwise.

I realise that many people who donated yesterday or today may have done so solely because they thought my emergency was tax-related. If anyone would like their gifts or loans returned in light of this new information, please let me know and I’ll get your money back to you as soon as I can.

Obviously I still need help just as much, whatever the cause, but I don’t want to exploit specifically libertarian sentiment to get it.

STOP! READ THIS UPDATE.

NOW READ THIS SECOND UPDATE.

I’ve never asked for money on my blog before, but I’ve just been hit with a major financial emergency.

Several months ago, the Alabama Department of Revenue decided I’d underpaid on state taxes from ten years earlier. (I wasn’t aware of having done so, but I don’t have those records any more and so can’t prove otherwise.) After they’d added on interest and late fees, the total due was about $12,000. I submitted a request form to pay it off in installments; they never said yes or no to the request form, but I kept sending in payments and they kept cashing them, which led me to be more sanguine than in retrospect I should have been.

Then suddenly today, without warning or announcement (either from the tax department or from my bank), the tax department completely cleared out my checking account, and my savings account, and my mother’s checking account (I guess because we’re joint on it), leaving me $8000 overdrawn to boot.

I found out the money’d been taken only by checking my balance online today – and I had to go to the bank in person to find out it was a tax levy (the online balance had no information about who’d withdrawn the money).

My college salary doesn’t start up again until September, and I have no relatives from whom to borrow, so here I am with no money (or actually, negative $8000) for food, rent, or bills for the rest of the summer.

I haven’t had a chance to contact either the tax department or a lawyer yet (having spent the afternoon waiting and waiting at my bank), but I’m not exactly optimistic about getting a swift and favourable resolution.

Which is why I am desperately requesting help. If you can help, please let me know whether it’s a gift or a loan, and send either via PayPal:

or to my snailmail address:

Roderick T. Long
402 Martin Ave.
Auburn AL 36849