A month ago, the Michigan Department of Treasury assured me Claudette Bliss' tax troubles were over.
   Bliss had paid her $73 bill in February. The state kept sending her dunning notices. In return, she kept sending copies of her canceled check. The next month, along would come another bill.
   By the time she contacted me, the interest and penalties for the debt she already paid had swollen the bill to $108.95. So I called the state collection division, which managed to dig up one of her letters. Problem solved.
   Sort of.
   Nine days later, the Clinton Township grandmother got another bill, this time for $113.21. But not long after that, the Department of Treasury sent her a letter of surrender, and all is theoretically well.
   That does not, alas, help Brandon Slone.
   Slone, 26, owed the Department of Treasury $349. He wrote the check in April. In August, the state sent him a chummy little note telling him to pay up or else.
   He immediately ordered a copy of the check from his bank and sent it off to Lansing, where it was ignored.
   Come November, his bill had grown to more than $400. But at least someone finally responded to one of his letters. The tax division, he was told, was reviewing his case. If all went well, it would crash its mighty fist upon the table and render a decision within six months.
   "They've got the paperwork in front of them," notes Slone, who lives in Grosse Pointe Farms. "What do they need six months for? The only thing I can think of is that they've screwed up so many people's returns that it will take them six months to work through the stack."
   That's not far from the truth. Simply in terms of reading people's letters, the Treasury Department runs about four months behind. Imagine the chaos when someone has to actually act on what they read.
   Slone says the process has been an interesting education -- not only for him but for his students. It turns out he's been on the faculty at Grosse Pointe South High for four years, ever since he graduated from Madonna University.
   He teaches government.

Detroit News

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2002