Why I’ll never stop fighting the most absurd tax in Connecticut

In January 2021, I wrote in these pages about my extraordinary expertise with the taxing authorities within the State of Connecticut. That they had insisted out of the blue, three years after I’d moved to Florida, that I owed them $250 in principal, curiosity and debt-collection charges for a vehicular property tax invoice in 2017 that I had not, in reality, ever obtained.

Connecticut’s horrible habits all through the saga, I steered, neatly summed up why “individuals are fleeing the Northeast.” On the finish of that piece, I wrote, “Finally, I’ll pay this tax, to make it go away.” Eighteen months later, nonetheless firmly ensconced in Connecticut’s Kafkaesque vortex (and nonetheless dwelling in Florida), I’ve modified my thoughts. As an alternative, I’d be part of a militia. 

My newest interactions with state officers have been past absurd. Connecticut legislation has a provision permitting the elimination of any curiosity and costs from taxes if authorities “decide that the delinquency is attributable to an error by the tax assessor or tax collector and isn’t the results of any motion or failure on the a part of the taxpayer.” This describes me completely — I’ve by no means in my life declined to pay a tax on time, and I didn’t right here. And but Connecticut received’t take away the curiosity and costs, as a result of I’m unable to show that I didn’t obtain their letters.

Take into consideration that for a second: How, on earth, would I start to show that I didn’t obtain a letter? I can no extra show that I didn’t obtain one thing within the mail than I can show that I didn’t hear a thunderstorm. It’s a metaphysical impossibility — which, after all, Connecticut appears to instinctively perceive when the shoe is on the opposite foot.

Once I requested one bureaucrat if he may show that the state truly despatched me any notices, his response was shocked. “How may we do that?” he wrote again in an electronic mail.

I dunno. By maintaining information, maybe?

And so again we go into the identical cycle. “Have you ever tried speaking to the gathering company?” Connecticut asks. I’ve, sure. However attempting to speak to the gathering company they’ve employed is like attempting to play chess with a tree. I write, I electronic mail, I fax. And no matter I do — at this stage, I may parachute in from a helicopter singing Girl Gaga songs, and it will make no distinction — I obtain a letter each three months informing me that I haven’t responded and that one other $8 has been added to the invoice.

The entire is now $292.92. That’s $292.92 for a invoice that might have price simply $24.89 if I had obtained it in 2017 as an alternative of 2020.

Slowly, however absolutely, I’ve come to comprehend that Connecticut’s system will not be inefficient, however evil, and my expertise will not be an exception, however the rule. In 2006, The New York Instances printed a chunk about Connecticut’s harassment of a person named Randal Hans, whom the state chased for a decade over nonpayment of a property-tax invoice that he by no means obtained within the first place.

Hans’ expertise and mine are practically similar. “He by no means obtained a tax invoice, he mentioned, and by no means obtained notices about again taxes.” Verify. At first, he “wasn’t certain if it was a rip-off or an actual invoice.” Verify. When he insisted that he’d by no means been notified, he was instructed that “receiving a invoice isn’t a prerequisite for paying it.” Verify. Regardless of a number of makes an attempt, he “didn’t hear again from the gathering company.” Verify. When he requested for “proof that the workplace had despatched notices,” he “was instructed the information weren’t out there.” Verify. And so forth, and so forth.

The Instances’ piece ends with Hans saying, “I’m simply form of annoyed and form of near acceptance.”

I, too, am annoyed with Connecticut. However I’m not near acceptance. Once I first wrote about this in The Put up final yr, I obtained tons of of emails from readers who instructed me that the identical factor had occurred to them and inspired me to face agency. 

And so, I’m. The truth that so many different folks have eerily comparable tales will not be a coincidence. It’s a technique that displays how governments in Northeastern states deal with the individuals who dwell there. On the outset, this was about $250. Now, it’s concerning the vanity, entitlement and cynicism of Blue State bureaucrats.

We’re onto you, Connecticut. You’ve gotten been warned.

Charles C. W. Cooke is a senior author at Nationwide Evaluate.