What government does
I’m in business. Like most businesses, we sell stuff. Whenever you buy our stuff, we’ll take payments from you in, generally, any way you choose to get them to us. Check, cash, carrier pigeon, no problem. Hell, if you attached your cash to a brick and threw it through our window, we’d just consider the replacement window a valid business expense. We like getting your money. It’s why we’re here.
Not so with the .gov. I’m trying to pay taxes. Actually, I’m trying to pay estimated taxes. The won’t take my money. We’ve never paid these particular taxes to this particular bureaucracy before. They’re due Monday. Early last month, I filled out their form to authorize wire transfers. Due to a snafu on their end (i.e., Sorry sir, we, err, lost it) that didn’t go through and we’re looking at another 2 weeks. If I write them a check, they want to charge me a 10% penalty as opposed to if it’s just late and the penalty is interest, which is substantially less than 10%. I’m trying to pay you money. Jebus.
Idiots.
