The Federal Government is Broke and I am a Tax Cheat.

The 8th of February 2012, made me realise that the Federal Government really is hard up for money and that government employees have no idea how to perform their job let alone meet KPI's.

I received a letter dated the 8th February 2012, stating :"You may not be eligible for *********** tax refund that you claimed in 2009 and 2010 tax returns."

Claiming that I had not made payment application for benefit **** from Centrelink.

Hate to tell you ATO - but you were WRONG. I had claimed BOTH benefits, one had been accepted, the 2010 period in PAID July 2011 and the 2009 period was denied by Centrelink because Centrelink couldn't "data-match" with ATO records.

I resubmitted the Centrelink claim for benefit **** for the 2009 period and blindly waited for a response. Centrelink guidelines are 28 day turn-around. I advised ATO this was the case and sat back and waited (stupid me)

I re-entered the Centrelink office on the 21st March, they advised me that the claim was still being processed. I asked for a letter confirming this was the case, which I received and duly faxed off to the to Centrelink AND ATO data-matching team office. NO RESPONSE. Exert "As this matter is beyond my ability to solve. I just have to wait and consequently you will also have to wait. This also means that the adjustment to my tax return for the period 2009 can not be enforced until such time as Centrelink data-match information previously provided to them in July 2011."

On the 17th April, low and behold a revised assessment is received from the ATO claiming I owe them $1000. I duly send off ANOTHER letter to both the ATO and Centrelink. No response is received from either party. Exert: "As I have previously explained to you. Centrelink have failed to fulfil their end of the application, regarding benefit **** which was submitted to them on the 27th February 2012. I have now received an amended assessment, which I will not pay until Centrelink either pay or decline my application, which has been submitted. not once BUT twice for this period."

On the 19th April I decide enough is enough and submit a complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Low and behold within 48 hours I am talking to sane people from both the Ombudsman AND ATO (Not Centrelink)

At NO POINT IN time did ANYONE from Centrelink contact me to discuss this matter, even when escalated to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. NOT ONCE.

The ATO refuse to acknowledge they are wrong in applying a penalty, when evidence obviously shows doubt. They will only extend the payment due date, nothing else. But better than nothing I suppose.

On the 24th April 2012, (57 days after second application) a determination is made in my favour (as I knew it would be) and Centrelink have to pay me (as I knew would be the case.)

I then have to contact the ATO and advise them this is the case. Exert: "The stress you placed upon me was unacceptable and no-one was prepared to accept the fact that I am an honest law-abiding citizen. No wonder people dislike the ATO and staff face issues of verbal abuse, in relation to determinations that are incorrect. and force people to approach the Ombudsman to get things resolved."

The matter is now closed, but the fact that Centrelink did not contact me regarding ANY correspondence sent to them and ATO take 5 days to acknowledge fax or not at all in some cases, is deplorable.

My only conclusion in all of this, is that the Federal Government is broke and they are hoping the Little Mr and Mrs Smith, will just pay up and shut up and save the Government billions in benefits and reap illegal back payments.

Have you had a similar experience?

 My previous run-ins with Centrelink.

Social Security - September 2009
Social Security - Name and Shame - July 2011

**Centrelink finally called me on the 10th May 2012 at 5pm.........

Centrelink – Name and Shame

I persisted with the Centrelink applications, even though I tried 2 years ago and felt like I was being treated dirt.

Previously I’ve been denied assistance because of their attitude and being in the fragile state I was, I couldn’t afford the knock-down of dealing with more garbage in my life by following up forms etc.

3 weeks ago I went back to the same office and I was told (word for word) “It’s your fault” “Don’t blame us”, “If you don’t apply we won’t give you money” “We don’t care if you don’t have any money”

These were just SOME of the insults thrown at me from ONE person. I was also told I need financial counseling.

I was also told to seek emotional counselling.

I knew it was going to be bad – but I didn’t think applying for family payments would be so soul destroying, demoralising and make me feel like killing myself. For 24 hours prior I felt sick knowing I would have to face ‘those’ people again.

I had some forms thrown at me, and told to fill them in, come back when you’ve completed them and if they’re not completed in full, we have the right to reject them.

This occurred at the Epping, Victoria Centrelink office and I felt physically sick both before and after.

I confided in a girlfriend and she was aghast that people could treat me like that.

She took me under her wing and we went to a different office the following week. Talk about chalk and cheese.

The new office even had me applying for things that I’m fully entitled to and yet Epping didn’t even offer, (let alone check my circumstances) for any other supplementary income.

My girlfriend was appalled and so was the new Centrelink office, both advised that I make a complaint against the Epping Centrelink office, which I have just done, This isn’t a once off with me with that office. The 3 times in 10 years I’ve been to that office, I’ve had 3 bad experiences. And yet the ‘new’ office was a complete change and the attitude of staff was amazing, They didn’t see me as a leech – they saw me as a person.

So if you deal with Centrelink, perhaps take some Valium and pray that you get a good office with good people.

Is our society becoming more violent?

This is a question that I have been pondering for some time and I wonder how many other people are asking the same question.
My reason for asking this question of myself is that a service station that I frequent was robbed at gunpoint, not just a pistol but a ‘long arm’ rifle, about 3ft of death pointing you in the face.
Here is a photo of said armed robbery - Armed Hold Up - Thomastown

So I do a quick Google search of “Is our society becoming more violent?” and I get 1,810,000 results, worldwide and 61,800 results from Australia.

I’ve always thought that video games and parental care (or lack of it) and parental attitude has a lot to do with the violence that we are now seeing on the streets, in our homes, in our hospitals, in fact everywhere we look, there is violence, even the local shopping centre car park.

Have we become that rude and intolerant of others, that we can’t stop ourselves from threatening others when we don’t get our own way, or have we become that greedy that we refuse to work, instead robbing those that do work to support themselves?

A quick glance over the results I found, it doesn’t matter if we are talking about America, Europe Australia or even Britain, we are all concerned about the same thing. Children killing, children committing crimes that were once the domain of adults. I understand that the children are learning this behavior from somewhere and that somewhere is home, be it through parental behavior, video games, or TV, it is being learnt and needs to stop.

The articles listed below are just a miniscule fraction of what is reported and far more goes unreported.

28th Sept 2010 - 16yo charged with Murder [WA, Aust]

23rd August 2010 - Women charged after allegedly punching, burning babysitter with cigarette butt [QLD, Aust]

18th Feb 2010 - Sex beast and wife jailed for keeping woman as slave [SA, Aust]

18th Dec 2009 - Life ban for parent who 'punched' umpire [WA, Aust]

Once upon a time, if you were caught stealing something from your neighbour and your parents or the police found out, your parents would give you a swift kick up the back-side, the police a stern talking to in front of your parents.

These days – no swift kicks or informing parents or even stern talkings to by policemen, children have rights, rights to abuse those in authority, rights to do as they please, rights to ignore the law and get away with a slap on the wrist. This is also the second half of the problem, there is no personal accountability for your actions anymore.

You drink alcohol – you must be sick, you do drugs – you must be sick, you bash someone – you must be sick. You kill someone with your car – you must be sick. There is a label for everything and everything with a label. No longer do you have to use self-control – you can attach a label and get away with killing someone. Literally.

Australia and the world needs to wake up, the crime spree we are seeing at the moment is a generational problem and we need to realize that people need to be accountable for their actions and the courts of law need to toughen up and realize that the world will be a safer place if they applied the penalties as dictated by law and not just a slap on the wrist.

Your thoughts?

I tweet – it doesn’t make me a bad person

I tweet, I play with Twitter. I enjoying talking to people, I enjoy the instant news updates, local, national and international. I enjoy the one on one conversations possible via DM (private messaging) I enjoy the interaction provided by the @ (mentions) facility.

People are constantly asking me why I bother wasting my time, because that is what they see Twitter as, a waste of time. Like any social media it CAN be a time-waster, but used in the right way can be an excellent way of keeping up to date instantly with news either locally or internationally or even something as simple as a road closure or traffic accident in your local area.

I love the fact I can pop in and out of Twitter and not miss anything. If someone wants to include me in a conversation they mention you and it pops up in your time line as a mention. It could sit there for 1-2 hours, or even days and you can still follow the conversation. Not everybody has access 24/7 – not everyone wants access 24/7.

As my work involves computers, I have access almost 24/7. But that doesn’t mean that I participate 24/7.

I see Twitter as one big world-wide neighbourhood; people ask for help, people look for support. People share their good news, people share their bad.

The trick to Twitter is not to try and keep up with each and every tweet that people have broadcast, since you were last active. Just wipe everything in past, check your mentions and pop right back into the stream of tweets.

Say good morning, wander off for a coffee, and maybe go to work. Pop in later and see who has what to say. Different times of the day have different nations online. You rotate through the world depending on what time where and who’s doing what.

You don’t have to participate if you don’t want; you could be a voyeur and just watch. Or you can participate to the max and not miss one tweet or call for help. It’s completely up the user, as to how they choose to participate.

Twitter has also come to the forefront in cases of emergencies. From the Australian Bushfires to the Haiti Earthquake to the New Zealand Earthquakes, to the Natural Gas line explosion in San Bruno, California.

Hash tags have been developed, that assist the Twitter user in following topics of interest. At the time of writing this the most popular hash tags were:-
#neverforget in relation to the events of 9/11
#Clijsters in relation to the US Tennis Open
#IMORTAL TRICOLOR is a homosexual Brazilian football team. (<-- I’m not sure I want to know where this one came from.)

Why not jump in and join all the bad people and have some fun, meet some good people, both online and off (which I have done several times)

Do the Twitter thing and become a twerp and release some tweets on the world!

Blogger Bulltish

Many people blog, they blog from the inane, to politics to what the outcome of the next sporting event will be. Different horses for different courses. Everybody seeks out that which will interest them.

Often comment is invited, often comments are left.

I’ve been blogging for a tiny weeny little while now and of course I seek out those with similar interests or topics that may interest me, be it local things like foxes on the London Tube to emergency services or even home cooking. Yeah my tastes can be a little extreme!

I’ve noticed more and more, with the blogs that I follow and take an interest in, that many comments made by the viewing public are not published. A select few from friends seem to get up and published – but complete ‘strangers’ uh uh, no siree bob – your comments ain’t wanted here.

Twice in the last week – this has occurred to me.

The comments weren’t offensive, they were on topic, yes I can wander a bit, but mostly not.

Have you experienced this?

Please don’t name the blogs concerned, this isn’t a show and tell – just a general discussion on what you may have experienced when posting comments on blogs.

Thanks!

Kids and Life

Yes I am qualified to blog about this topic – I have two wonderful children and have had many pass through my front door in their times of need. (I am not a foster parent), but when a child needs somewhere to retreat from the world for 2-3 days – they seem to find my place and my children!

Anyway, back on topic. In the almost 18 years that I have been a parent to my own children and the various strays that I have picked up. There has been a common thread in all the problems. That problem is a dysfunctional family unit. It is common for people to blame the dysfunctional family unit on divorce. This is not always the case. There are often other factors causing the problems that I see.

Case 1 – A grandparent of a child approaches me at day care and aks if I wouldn’t mind picking up grandchild because she is unable to make it there before closing. NO problems, I am not going to leave the child because the parent/grandparent/carer is busy. This child becomes one of the family and often would inadvertently refer to either myself or my husband as mum or dad.

It turns out that the grandmother was not in a happy relationship with her partner, instead of addressing this issue and moving on, she persists and had many boyfriends, whilst her daughter is growing up. The daughter in turn can’t resolve personal problems/issues and turns to drugs to cope. When it was requested that we care for this child, the natural mother AND father were both in jail for drug offences.

Moving forward some years, the grandmother, who was once the main carer of the grandchild has dumped the child, the natural mother is once again in jail after having a further 3 children to different fathers. The child is now residing with the stepmother and natural father, the alternate was state care. We still see this child after 15 years of being involved as her carer. I only hope that one day if something goes bad, she remembers her ‘other family’ in her time of need.

Case 2 – Once again a grandparent approaches me from my street and acknowledges that both the children are of the same age and perhaps they would like to become playmates. I have no objections, the grandparents concerned are wonderful giving people, who would give the shirt off their own back if they had. Once again this child integrates into our family unit and would spend every weekend and school holidays at our place.

One more mouth, one more child is not an issue for us.

It turns out that the natural mother in her teenage/young adult years smoked marijuana. Which everyone claims is safe. Unfortunately I don’t believe this is the case, as the mother now has psychotic episodes that affect her ability to care for her child and subsequent children.

Moving forward, the child concerned was labeled a ‘problem child’ because the mother insisted she was, is now often so high on legal drugs that she is unable to communicate effectively and because of issues at home can no longer look a person in the face.

It is sad to see a child so down trodden and unhappy. She still comes to our place, but would rather sit secluded in the bedroom away from daily family life as she finds it too hard to deal with normal family issues. I have trouble seeing what future lays ahead for this child.

In case 1 – I believe that due to the nurturing of the stepmother, she will be fine and should be able to get ahead in life as long as she stays away from other dysfunctional children and families.

In case 2 – It makes me cry - because I saw the child that was, and I see the child that is. I believe that in this instance, care should have been granted to the grandparents as was requested, but denied. The reason for the defense? Because the mother needed the family payments to survive. Yet to gain custody from the natural father – she claimed that she was staying with the grandparents, which she moved out as soon as custody was awarded.

My two children in seeing these children are very aware of how lucky they are, very aware that they have it pretty good, very aware that we are strict but at the same time reasonable. There have been other cases, but these are the two that we as a family have been involved in the longest. I would like to believe that both my children are well adjusted and know right from wrong. Only time will tell.

Social Security

I have not dealt with social security for 10 years, maybe longer for the simple reason that the last time I walked in the door - they treated me like s*** and I refused to allow myself to be placed in the same position ever again.

Well, today after 10years I decided stuff it, I watch everyone else reap the rewards of being government loving leeches, so why can't I?

I walk in the door, wait in line, like a good little leech. Reach the desk only to be told by "J" that I have to apply online. Keeping in mind I am not on their lists, I have no participated in the leeching from the government for 10 years, even though I have 2 children and our household some years has managed to survive on as little as $30k a year and still manage to pay off a mortgage and put petrol in the car. (Still haven't figured out how we did it)

Anyway, walked out of said office with a throw over my shoulder of "No wonder, I swore I would never come in here, it's only for losers, suckers and leeches" - God knows why - I think I let my temper get the best of me :(

I get home and figure stuff it - I want my little bit of leeching, same as everyone else, hell I haven't leeched for 10 years, so now I will.

I ring the help line..... and low and behold get a very nice lady by the name of "A" to whom I explained the scenario and she walked me though the entire process and apologised for "J's" rudeness.

Tomorrow's task shall be the online application of what "A" has taught me and perhaps finding the number for complaints for poor customer service. I am sure the Government would like to know that their service to the leeches sucks .