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Tax Season

March 31st, 2014

Raise your hand if you enjoy doing taxes? If you raised your hand at that, you’re either lying or you’re just flat out crazy. Taxes are by no means fun and they’re rarely easy.

I prefer to do mine via Turbo Tax though. That way, I don’t have to drive anywhere and I can simply type the numbers that are in one box into the correct location on the screen. However, I was skeptical about doing my taxes on Turbo Tax for many reasons. One reason is I hate math and I don’t always trust myself when it comes to crunching numbers.

In fact, I may or may not take mine to H&R Block. When I was doing my takes, I accidentally left off a digit when I punched in my annual salary and saw I was getting back a lot of money. Then when I realized the mistake, I made my correction, and somehow my tax return number went down. Way down. What the….?

This made absolutely no sense whatsoever. One would figure the more money one makes in a year, the more taxes that are withheld and the more money one would receive on his taxes.

However, things are always as appear and there are many people in the government who lack common sense. If what I was told was correct, the good news is it extremely easy to file but the bad news is I’m not getting nearly as much as I hoped. If it’s incorrect, I’ll be glad to find that out by taking it to H&R Block. Thankfully there are several of those around in Tyler and throughout East Texas.

Congress Plans Vote to Starve Obama Care of Funds

February 10th, 2011

The Republican House is once again on a collision course with the other half of the legislature and with the executive. The plan is to vote to restrict funds from the new Obama care program sometime next week. Frustrated Dems are again ridiculing the vote as another measure that will go nowhere given the fact that they control the senate. But the Republicans are simply demonstrating their seriousness both about undoing the new health care legislation and about reducing overall spending. This week they released a plan to deeply cut expenditures to a whole slew of government programs, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Amtrak, the IRS, (seriously, who won’t support that?!) and numerous other big government favs.

So even though the move to defund the President’s pet law will probably not go very far it does serve a highly useful purpose. It reminds the American people where their senators and congressmen or women stand on the issue. Despite the promises of the ineffectual Harry Reid, the repeal did in fact make it to the senate floor where members where forced once again to put their names to controversial and unpopular legislation. I hope the electorate was watching. Now the landscape has changed slightly however. With the federal judiciary ruling Obama care unconstitutional it’s almost certain to eventually find its way to the supremes. Congresses vote next week would potentially put the Senate back on the hot seat, particularly if the nation’s highest court eventually up holds the federal court’s ruling and throws out the new law. Any votes against defunding national health insurance would be in effect votes for sustaining unconstitutional government.

Again, it’s imperative that the American people follow the money, and the votes on this thing! I realize many of us are cynical about our nation’s leadership, but that’s all the more reason. Big changes are afoot here and for once we have a group of people in congress doing what they said they were going to do! The American voters are smart people, smarter than they are often given credit for. Just don’t go back to sleep. We have a lot to learn in the next few months and perhaps more to teach.

Southern Utilities of Smith County

August 31st, 2009

I usually try to focus my writing efforts on businesses I can endorse (at least in some measure). This time however, I find it necessary to shine the rays of critism on one of the  worst companies with whom I have ever had the misfortune of doing business.

For those citizens of Tyler who to get their water services from the city, be thankful that you need not do business with Southern Utilities. The fact that they have a monopoly on area water services outside the city proper allows them to charge whatever they will for the absolute minimum in return. The aforementioned monopoly has also served to insulate the public relations department (such as it is), from the companies reputation in the community. I have yet to encounter an institution (aside from the IRS perhaps), which cares less for the customers it is supposed to serve.

Upon returning home to Tyler, I purchased and moved into my new home. When the time came to activate the usual services I was able to open new accounts easily and usually over the phone except in one instance. The single most frustrating service to open was not in fact the gas, nor was it the electricity. The most difficult company to deal with, the one with the most red tape and unhelpful staff was in fact our local water company, Southern Utilities. I had potentially hazardous soruces of power and energy activated in my home by simple phone call, and yet, taking a shower required the former owner of my house (fortunately a friend of mine), to visit during his busy work week in order to remove his name from the account and validate the sale of the house.

But this initial hassel was only a sign of things to come. The customer service department does nothing to make the company more approachable. They have no on line services to allow the costumer an easier way to pay, nor will they take payments over the phone. For those financially challenging months which require a personal visit to ensure on time payment, its best to arrive before four o’clock  since the lobby closes at that time. To be fair, the drive through window is now open until five, but you had better be prepared to pay in cash or with a check. Southern Utitlities does not accept either credit cards or check cards. And should you find yourself making a late payment, you can forget about an extention. Rarely are those granted, and when they are, you can bet a lot of stamina was required to win the argument.   

But these complaints are not new. Virtually everyone I know who has dealt with S.U. tells me the same stories. So how can the company work its way back into the customer’s good graces? For starters get a website, one that provides easier access to individual accounts. This would necessitate allowing people to pay by card, also an improvement. Generally, at least appear to make an effort! Try to convince me that my satisfaction is actually important.

On a scale of one to five I have to give Southern Utilities a one.  So if you’re new to Tyler and you have a choice of water companies, take the one that’s not Southern Utilities you’ll be glad you did. Southern Utilities is located on Broadway just north of the down town square.