Last year I received a notice from a collection agency regarding unpaid personal property taxes on my old 1991 Toyota Camry. It was about $25, I think, including the interest for paying late. The problem is, I’d traded in the car in 2004 when I purchased my Jetta. I basically had to contact the dealership and have them send me a copy of the sales information from their records so I could fax it to the city as proof that I really had sold it. Phew…that was settled.

Until this year.

I received THREE tax bills this year – one each for Valerie’s and my Jetta, and one for a 1991 Toyota Camry. That I still didn’t own.

Today I called the city offices and pressed “3” for the Department of Finance or whatever. When I told the customer service gal that I had a problem with my personal property tax, I was informed that that department was currently unavailable because of high demand. That is, the very group with which I had a problem during tax season wasn’t taking calls during tax season since IT WAS BUSY BECAUSE OF TAX SEASON!

So I left a freaking message. I may be too generous in assuming they keep records of what people paid in years past, but if they did, they should be able to see that I clearly paid only for two Volkswagens, and didn’t do a thing about a Toyota. We’ll see.