|
Guinness posted:I'm always amazed at how bad people are at updating their address for things after they've moved. I've had numerous instances of receiving kind of important stuff from old tenants for MONTHS after they're gone. Like bank/credit card statements, phone bills, medical records/bills, car insurance, etc. Especially since you only have to fill out one easy form from USPS to forward all your mail. People are idiots.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 01:53 |
|
|
# ? May 14, 2024 10:57 |
|
A lot of the time that's the USPS's fuckup, though. I've definitely had them just keep delivering stuff to my old apartment even after I kept paying to change my address. And companies gently caress up plenty too; right now I'm getting tons and tons of a relative's mail -- we don't have the same name or live in the same state, but here it is!
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 02:04 |
|
I've lived in my house for 7 months and I still get a poo poo ton of mail from the previous owners including all of their tax stuff. I've written "not at this address, return to sender" on so much mail that my mailman had started to passive-aggressively circle "or current resident" on my junk mail. (I only wrote RTS if it looked important - medical bills, student loan companies) I'm tempted to contact their old realtor to pass on the message to fill out change of address forms. It's seriously a LOT of mail and our mailbox is too tiny to fit all the catalogs.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 10:13 |
|
drat Bananas posted:I've lived in my house for 7 months and I still get a poo poo ton of mail from the previous owners including all of their tax stuff. I've written "not at this address, return to sender" on so much mail that my mailman had started to passive-aggressively circle "or current resident" on my junk mail. (I only wrote RTS if it looked important - medical bills, student loan companies) I'm tempted to contact their old realtor to pass on the message to fill out change of address forms. It's seriously a LOT of mail and our mailbox is too tiny to fit all the catalogs. I kept getting debt collection calls at my old cell number. They didn't stop until I told them what I'd found out about the guy they were looking for (I guess I'm a better internet detective than they are). In retrospect they might have been violating some laws; I should have pursued that avenue instead.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 10:53 |
|
Guinness posted:I'm always amazed at how bad people are at updating their address for things after they've moved. I've had numerous instances of receiving kind of important stuff from old tenants for MONTHS after they're gone. Like bank/credit card statements, phone bills, medical records/bills, car insurance, etc. To be fair most people are receiving upwards of a dozen of things things regularly and it's easy to miss one.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 11:05 |
|
drat Bananas posted:I've lived in my house for 7 months and I still get a poo poo ton of mail from the previous owners including all of their tax stuff. I've written "not at this address, return to sender" on so much mail that my mailman had started to passive-aggressively circle "or current resident" on my junk mail. (I only wrote RTS if it looked important - medical bills, student loan companies) I'm tempted to contact their old realtor to pass on the message to fill out change of address forms. It's seriously a LOT of mail and our mailbox is too tiny to fit all the catalogs. 2 years in my place. That mail just goes in the recycle now. spwrozek fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Feb 8, 2014 |
# ? Feb 8, 2014 13:56 |
|
Our mailman does that too. gently caress that "or current resident" poo poo, should be illegal. Might as well send catalogs and junk mail to everyone on the country and just say hey too bad!!
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 17:35 |
|
How do people get on the junkmail bandwagon? I'm 30, rent, and don't ever get any junkmail specifically addressed to me. Literally never even gotten a credit card offer in the mail.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 17:40 |
|
blugu64 posted:How do people get on the junkmail bandwagon? I'm 30, rent, and don't ever get any junkmail specifically addressed to me. Literally never even gotten a credit card offer in the mail.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 18:39 |
|
drat Bananas posted:I've lived in my house for 7 months and I still get a poo poo ton of mail from the previous owners including all of their tax stuff. I've written "not at this address, return to sender" on so much mail that my mailman had started to passive-aggressively circle "or current resident" on my junk mail. (I only wrote RTS if it looked important - medical bills, student loan companies) I'm tempted to contact their old realtor to pass on the message to fill out change of address forms. It's seriously a LOT of mail and our mailbox is too tiny to fit all the catalogs. Start writing "Deceased" instead.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 19:26 |
|
I got my first junkmail waterfall when I applied to colleges (all 2 of them) and it hasn't stopped since!
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 19:26 |
|
I've opted out of junk mail a few years ago, and it's slowed to a trickle. http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email for info, if you live in the USA.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 19:42 |
|
I set my mail to forward before I'd left to study abroad, and the dude still gets my mail sometimes. :/ What in the world did I pay for?
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 22:04 |
|
Aerofallosov posted:I set my mail to forward before I'd left to study abroad, and the dude still gets my mail sometimes. :/ What in the world did I pay for? No idea what you paid for, considering the post office forwards your mail for free if you just fill out the form and turn it into them there. Or you can do it online for one dollar.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 23:24 |
|
Well duh he paid $1 for it. Guess we get what we pay for.
|
# ? Feb 8, 2014 23:39 |
|
When I've changed my address, the post office wouldn't let me do it in person. The only thing they had there was a card with their website to file and pay online.
|
# ? Feb 9, 2014 00:27 |
|
Junk mail makes for great scratch paper.
|
# ? Feb 9, 2014 01:00 |
|
Anne Whateley posted:When I've changed my address, the post office wouldn't let me do it in person. The only thing they had there was a card with their website to file and pay online. Yeah, they wouldn't let me do it in person, either. And I was being a bit flippant with my response, sorry. I do still feel pretty badly for the poor sap who gets my mail AND his in that tiny mailbox they give you at the apartment complex.
|
# ? Feb 9, 2014 01:25 |
I'm sure somebody will find this interesting. For those of you who know nothing about Australian superannuation, here's the rundown: About 20 years ago it was put into law that every employer had to set aside 9% of their workers salaries into their nominated superannuation fund. That money could not be touched unless you meet one of several very specific circumstances (such as retirement, have six months to live, etc, although I hear there's ways to draw on that money through Centrelink if you're in a lot of financial trouble). You can manage your superannuation money yourself, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to spend it. You can invest it how you see fit, but you're not allowed to, say, withdraw $20,000 and go to Vegas. Self-managed Superannuation basically means that you're the trustee to your client, the client being yourself, and as trustee you're subject to all the harshest penalties if you cock it up. So the friend of the poster on the page I linked to above gets himself a self-managed super fund, completely ignores all the scary paperwork you have to sign to get one, and proceeds to spend $15,000 of his $40,000 retirement savings on a rental bond and a car. He's going to be so hosed when the Australian Tax Office is notified as similar actions to his in the past have lead to gaol time. froglet fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Feb 9, 2014 |
|
# ? Feb 9, 2014 07:51 |
|
froglet posted:He's going to be so hosed when the Australian Tax Office is notified as similar actions to his in the past have lead to gaol time. Hahaha, that guy is hosed big time. Surely you have to think it's not a good idea when the company looking after the paperwork and legal side of it instantly drops you like a rock. For the rest of the world, the money in the super account is basically a managed investment fund. This guys probably thinks it's OK because it's his money anyway, but in reality the law sees this as a investment fund manager taking their clients money to buy themselves a car and pay a rental bond. Also pretty sure every super fund is supposed to be audited yearly with one of the main purposes being to make sure that the money is actually being spent in a way designed to generate a positive return, so it's not going to take them long to figure it out. EDIT: That thread is from 2 years ago? Is there a payoff for going through it? Rudager fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Feb 9, 2014 |
# ? Feb 9, 2014 10:45 |
Rudager posted:Hahaha, that guy is hosed big time. The poster said he'd update when he had more information, but I checked his post history and there wasn't any posts saying 'so now my friend is in gaol/has been fined $100,000'.
|
|
# ? Feb 9, 2014 11:22 |
|
A few months ago we were on the envelope system but ended up falling off the wagon for a few months. Cue today, we are looking for a tax document and stumble across 5 envelopes of money totaling $489. It's cool that we have 'bonus' money but it's so loving pitiful we could casually misplace almost $500 and not even notice. Our combined income is only like 48k annually.
|
# ? Feb 9, 2014 23:22 |
|
More /r/personalfinance gold:"/r/personalfinance posted:This is a throwaway account because my situation is really embarassing. Procrastination, fear, poor decisions and lack of resources have brought me to this. I'm totally afraid to even access the damage. So here goes....I just turned 40, in the middle of a divorce (actually kind of amicable), about to graduate x-ray tech school on october 4th but.... I have no savings, i live on a $120 allowance per week from my sis, i havent done taxes in 13 years, i owe a poo poo ton of money in school loans, im pretty sure my credit is totally jacked and it goes on and on. Question, can my credit even be rescued? Am I going to sent to a CIA black site for not paying taxes in 13 years? Is it possible to save enough money to retire at a reasonable age at this point or is it already to late?
|
# ? Feb 9, 2014 23:26 |
|
Guinness posted:More /r/personalfinance gold: Assuming this guy had a job, how do you not file for 13 years not come up as a blip on the audit radar?
|
# ? Feb 10, 2014 00:08 |
|
OneWhoKnows posted:Assuming this guy had a job, how do you not file for 13 years not come up as a blip on the audit radar? If he's really really loving lucky (and not good at W-4s, which we can probably take as close to a given) he might be owed a refund for most or all of those years with just the standard deduction. If that's what's going on, the IRS won't care much. If they have your money rather than vice versa, they're more than happy to just hang on to that money for you penalty-free until you can get around to filing.
|
# ? Feb 10, 2014 00:24 |
|
Space Gopher posted:If he's really really loving lucky (and not good at W-4s, which we can probably take as close to a given) he might be owed a refund for most or all of those years with just the standard deduction. If that's what's going on, the IRS won't care much. If they have your money rather than vice versa, they're more than happy to just hang on to that money for you penalty-free until you can get around to filing. Assuming he's as bad at his job as he is at life (not judging people who choose low income professions), he probably never made much money, so he probably would be owed a refund most/all years.
|
# ? Feb 10, 2014 01:36 |
|
I've known a few people like that, who basically refuse to file tax returns and think that they are making out like bandits because the big "inefficient" IRS hasn't caught them and made them pay their taxes. Knowing their incomes, I can absolutely guarantee that they would be getting money back for all those years, and that's why the IRS isn't doing anything about it.
|
# ? Feb 10, 2014 13:25 |
|
OneWhoKnows posted:Assuming this guy had a job, how do you not file for 13 years not come up as a blip on the audit radar? My sister is doing the books for a company full of people like this. The checks are being made out to the people, the paperwork says the payments are going to LLC and the company is more than a year late filing 1099s. They went through 4 bookkeepers last year. The company goes "out of business" every couple years, reopening under a new name, a new LLC, new TIN while being the same folks. They do squirrely real estate stuff, so companies going out of business all the time is not rare. They go out of business before the IRS comes after them so that the trail is cold by the time the feds start sniffing around.
|
# ? Feb 10, 2014 18:08 |
|
Anonymous Zebra posted:I've known a few people like that, who basically refuse to file tax returns and think that they are making out like bandits because the big "inefficient" IRS hasn't caught them and made them pay their taxes. Knowing their incomes, I can absolutely guarantee that they would be getting money back for all those years, and that's why the IRS isn't doing anything about it. I worked with a guy who was exactly like this. Him and his wife hadn't done taxes in like 7 years, and when they finally got around to dropping all of their documents at a tax prep place, it turned out they were getting almost $27k back.
|
# ? Feb 10, 2014 23:48 |
|
Yeah, I did it. 11 years.. or something. In Australia, paid H&R Block like 1200 bucks and they sorted it all and lodged them all, paid off my entire HECS debt (debt for Uni) in one go. Something like 22k. I think the thing to know is the ATO (or IRS) is busy as gently caress and there are zillions of people doing this poo poo. Software is probably scanning through the tax records and popping alerts, but it's possible to be missed for decades at a time. When you're relatively young we're also talking about gently caress all tax and hence they probably chase the bigger cases first. Al Capone, Martha Stewart, Willie Nelson, Nicolas Cage and Boris Becker all got done for it. They'll get you in the end and it's just clockwork for them, by the time you'll hear about it from them you're completely stitched up.
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 00:07 |
|
I forgot about a W2 (it was mailed to the wrong address) and wasn't paying enough attention to catch it so I misfiled my taxes in 2012 (for the 2011 year). The IRS contacted me in mid 2013 with a bill and an automated letter that said "you didn't report this W2 that we got." They charged me 3% yearly interest and let me mail them a check. (This was about 1000 dollars that I owed them; hardly a whole year's worth of taxes.) I am pretty sure that anyone who hasn't filed their taxes for 5+ years and not gotten a letter from the IRS is just overpaying them.
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 03:48 |
|
A person I know that looks like me and shares my name, it's me, thought it'd be a good idea to sign up for a random course and student loan when I left school to fund my alcohol and partying youth lifestyle. 20k dollars later I'm left with zero qualifications and very little memory of the year. Currently at 24 still paying it off in a poo poo job with just-above minimum wage. Add to that a complete lack of budget skills and compulsive spending, a wife and 2 kids. fakeedit: Don't misconstrue the regret as directed at my kids, they're the one thing I'm doing right.
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 06:01 |
|
Spiteski posted:A person I know that looks like me and shares my name, it's me, thought it'd be a good idea to sign up for a random course and student loan when I left school to fund my alcohol and partying youth lifestyle. I'm not sure if it's possible to do it right by your kids at age 24 on minimum wage, but godspeed. I hope you're at least collecting food stamps or the like. May I ask what region you live in?
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 06:16 |
|
Vox Nihili posted:I'm not sure if it's possible to do it right by your kids at age 24 on minimum wage, but godspeed. I live in New Zealand. Which makes a world of difference I imagine to what constitutes minimum wage. We are collecting some subsidies from the government to make up a bit of income. Such as in-work family tax credits, and accommodation supplements. Our total income is roughly 35k before tax. Rent is the major killer, with a cheap decent house in our area anywhere from $380-500 per week. We currently pay $410. As much as doing right goes, food, clothes, and rent/utilities comes before anything else. After all that is said and done though, I still suck at budgeting, and frequently find we are back to zero savings.
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 07:41 |
|
Spiteski posted:Rent is the major killer, with a cheap decent house in our area anywhere from $380-500 per week. This is loving expensive rent, dude. My friends in Adelaide will give you a three bedroom, brand new house with Internet included for that, or my sister has a 2 br apartment in St Kilda, which is in the middle of Melbourne, on the beach. You can move somewhere cheaper? If you're being paid minimum wage you should be able to find comparable or better work wherever you go.
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 10:24 |
|
I was the person bad with money. I ran my own business for 18 months but registered my income incorrectly because the forms were in a second language that I'm only getting the hang of now, end result being having to pay 10K in back taxes. I "forgot" about my student loan for a few years, got to the point that I was owing about a $100 in interest a month. Got a real job after my business fun and paid it down as quickly as was bearable. I lived almost rent free in Oslo, Norway for 5 years and managed to save nothing despite having an okay average income. I've started so many unfinished courses, worst of which is my driving licence (costs a lot in Norway) which has a series of mandatory lessons including ice driving, long distance driving and night driving. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to take them all again because it's been about 3 years since I did them. Thanks to the Zaurg, Cornholio, Tuyop and Slow Motion I have a better understanding of my finances and control over my spending habits and budgeting. But I'm still embarrassed that it took me so long and I still don't understand my pension or have a long term plan for what I'm doing with my money.
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 10:55 |
|
Spiteski posted:As much as doing right goes, food, clothes, and rent/utilities comes before anything else. Sounds like you need your own thread!
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 14:49 |
|
HelloIAmYourHeart posted:Sounds like you need your own thread! Agreed. I had enough of a while reading that, that I think you'd benefit from special attention.
|
# ? Feb 11, 2014 14:56 |
|
HelloIAmYourHeart posted:Sounds like you need your own thread! SpelledBackwards posted:Agreed. I had enough of a while reading that, that I think you'd benefit from special attention. I've put one up to get some advice.
|
# ? Feb 12, 2014 02:15 |
|
|
# ? May 14, 2024 10:57 |
|
Not sure if my sister in law falls into the category of bad with money but she is a likely candidate at times. She bought a 2012 Kia Soul brand new with a typical 4 year loan and decided yesterday she wanted a vehicle that she didn't have to leave at work and get rides home when there is a poo poo ton of snow on the ground and she also lives in a city that is full of steep hills and narrow streets. When I say steep, I am talking about you probably need a winch to get up some of these hills when major snow hits the area. So she went out and bought a 2014 Rav 4, the Kia turn in did not cover the cost she still had on her loan, so she still ended up owing money on the car and now has a loan payment for a 2014 vehicle that is not really going to do much better in the snow in the particular city she lives in. Oh yeah she also works as a journalist in the small towns crappy newspaper.
|
# ? Feb 12, 2014 02:54 |