Don’t let those three letters behind my name fool you. I am awful at taking tests. I could give you the contact information of a dozen high school teachers that would vouch for that. No one disliked the threat of a pop quiz more than myself.
So under normal circumstances, I’d be sweating the chances of getting my refund claim from the state of Ohio this year. Normal circumstances would be the absence of the discovery my wife made 12 months ago…Amazon Prime. Thanks to her masterful online shopping skills, I don’t have an Ohio income tax refund in my near future. Nope. Use tax took care of that puppy before it ever happened.
I’m off the hook. No pop quiz anxiety for at least another year. Instead I get to listen to the multiple gripes of those individuals who do expect some money back from Governor Kasich for 2014.
I understand and applaud the state’s proactive stance on identity theft and rampant tax fraud. Just today, I received a call from someone posing to be my local natural gas carrier who spent all of two seconds making small talk before asking for my social security number. Fewer things are more frustrating than the ease in which such predators track down your personal information.
Ohio’s answer for now, appears in the form of extensive cross checking of the information held by all possible state-run departments, including county real estate tax information. I have co-workers who’ve already filed having answered questions about their closest sibling, the model of their first car, and even the subdivision they grew up in.
So before you get too excited about the interest free annual savings account you create in the form of an individual income tax refund, I’d take a few moments to make sure you know your siblings better than they know themselves. By this time next year, Amazon should be charging Ohioans sales tax and I’ll be studying right there beside you.
