- Landlord's business office has lost our rent check...again. Third time in 2 years. Last time their "solution" was to ask us to pay by cashier's check. Um, so, you want us to shell out extra $$ every month because your business manager is incompetent, then send through the mail a form of payment that could be cashed by anyone, after your business manager has already demonstrated a propensity for misplacing such things? I don't think so.
- I won a VISA gift card at the vendor show a few weeks ago. They sent it to my campus address (apparently), but it hasn't turned up. They are now sending me one to my home address, with instructions to spend both in case the first one ever escapes the campus mail vortex. w00t!
- MegaResearchInstitute (home of GradLab) had me do a fuckton of paperwork last year so that they could retrieve from the IRS the ~$4K in tax that they erroneously removed from my stipend during the 4 years I was supported by a training grant. The first installment of this money was supposed to be in my hot little hands sometime last month. I still have not seen hide nor hair of this money, nor the fuckton of paperwork that I need to do in order to get installments 3 and 4. Is this some kind of hoax?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
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MegaResearchInstitute (home of GradLab) had me do a fuckton of paperwork last year so that they could retrieve from the IRS the ~$4K in tax that they erroneously removed from my stipend during the 4 years I was supported by a training grant.
This reminds me of the time I came home to an IRS mailing saying we owed them $4200 for the social security I owed on my stipend as a post doc. Nothing improves a night at home like getting that in the mail.
I was sent right to the hospital counsel to help get this taken care of, as it would have impacted all the postdocs at Children's. The counsel reminded the IRS examiner that the IRS already had ruled these stipends were not subject to Soc Security taxes.
HA, take that old farts!!!!!!!!
Here's hoping you get that windfall soon.
ARGH!! Apparently they did submit the first year's reimbursement hoo-hah, but the IRS rejected it because of some kind of "data discrepancy", which they will need to sort out, then resubmit, then they will get started on years 2-4, but none of this will happen until the current tax season is over, and I get the distinct impression that this is not a high priority for them even then since it's a lot of work with zero return for the institution. Why do I get this impression?
Oh, I don't know, it might have been this line in response to my polite inquiry as to what's the fucking holdup: "We currently have no timeline for when this process will be completed."
Fuckers.
I'm glad that you were able to head this off at the pass and not have to petition for reimbursement. I tried to do that, and even did my homework and sent them the relevant info from the NIH regarding tax on stipends both before and during my tenure on the training grant and they basically told me to fuck off and that they'd sort it out later...like 4 years later.
I am trying to decide whether it would help or just piss people off if I started sending weekly emails after April 15 to the accounting office to politely inquire how it is going.
I would so send these weekly emails.
You know you can program your e-mail program to do that for you ;-) see how long it takes till they start doing something....
Hope you get it sorted!
Well, at least one of them looks like it's going to work in your favor. I do hope you collect your tax money soon though. Maybe some regular emails wouldn't be a bad idea.
I am beginning to suspect that all landlords do this sort of stuff on purpose. It's written into their official policies and procedures: "Squeeze as much cash as possible out of our tenants, by any and all means, no matter how shady."
Sarah - I'm tempted to agree with you. However, the landlord stands to gain nothing from this. Every time they lose a check, we deduct the bank's check cancellation fee from the rent (paid in a new check). If they make us pay by cashier's check, we'll be deducting the fee for that from the rent as well. They don't win with this one. It's baffling really - I conclude that it is truly incompetence.
One wonders if you could somehow turn their incompetence in your favor, and somehow scam a free month's rent out of the deal. Not that I would ever advocate such behavior. Ahem.
How does a cashier's check solve the landlord's problem of lost checks?
As a post-doc on a training grant, I have to figure out my own tax payments and make them quarterly. Pain in the butt. :-(
Jenski - It doesn't. Not at all. It just indicates to me that the landlord thinks that we're lying about lost checks because we can't cover the rent. The easy solution would be to get with the program that EVERY OTHER PRIVATELY RENTED property we've ever lived at has done: give your tenants deposit slips to the account that you want the rent paid into. Then we take the check straight to the bank and put it in the account on the day it is due. This cuts out any unreliable middle-people like the post office or the landlord's office staff. But they are resistant to change and don't want to do this. We're now taking the check to the office in person, and insisting on getting a receipt. But of course they keep unpredictable office hours so it's kind of a pain in the ass. If I didn't like the house so much, and hate moving so much, and like our neighbors so much, and have 3 pets and an aquarium in tow it would probably be worth it to move. But it's really hard to find a place that will take your pets.
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