logic fail

[deird1]

I am very bad at paperwork.

Because I am very bad at paperwork, my superannuation is in a bit of a mess.

Thankfully, the Australian Tax Office is here to help! I just need to go to their website, and ask! Woo!

BUT WAIT. What if I'm not really me? Oh noes! They'd better verify my details to make sure.

...which is how I end up registering with the ATO, and having them ask me for:
- my name
- my birthdate
- the details of the bank account I had my taxes paid into
- the date they sent me a notice of assessment for my taxes
- the hour and minute of my first sneeze during the third full moon in 2008
(Okay, so that last one is a lie. But I consider it no harder to tell them than the OTHERS.)

...yeah. So, that being bad at paperwork thing? How am I supposed to find all this paperwork that I need before the ATO will help me to find my paperwork? How?

*slight sob*

Comments

[velvetwhip]

I hope this Catch 22 gets solved.


Gabrielle

[owenthurman]

I've been known to file the old fashioned previous generation paper forms because they used to write them so that a smarter-than-average person with no special experience could just understand them.

That gets special attention when they're inputting the data, of course, but I'm not really trying to cheat the tax authorities, so I suppose that's okay. The laws haven't changed enough to make the older ways of doing things really illegal yet in the USA. I don't know what I'll do when they finally prohibit paper filing.

[kerkevik]

Whatever system is used; for whatever official purpose, I will always need someone's help to fill in forms. They fill me with the kind of unreasoning dread that people seem to feel when they see spiders.

Ray.

[deird1]

Ditto. :)

[immer_am_lesen]

I feel your pain! We were faced with something similar when trying to sign up for Medicare online (I think that's what it was?) The usual name/address/DOB we had no problems with, but asking us to list our last several GP visits, including date and cost...no paperwork for it and my memory is not THAT good, so we had to give up. :-/