Am I Losing It?
By M.-L.
@MALUSE (69413)
Germany
June 8, 2018 12:22pm CST
Every year I do my income tax statement and send it to the tax and revenue office. If I don't do it, there are no negative consequences. But there aren't any positive ones, either. I get money back for my expenses. For example, for my health insurance and also for donations to charity. Before reunification, West Germans also got some money back for parcels sent to people in the GDR (German Democratic Republic).
How this is calculated, is beyond me. But I don't have to know this, do I? Only the result is interesting. Last year, I got ~$758 back. Not bad, eh?
I go to the tax and revenue office where I find several forms which I have to fill in. There is always so much to fill in and it's boring to do it. I procrestinate and procrastinate. The deadline date is May 31st. This year I didn't make it. I have no apology for that. I'm retired and have time enough.
I remembered reading that one can ask for some more time in case of need. According to the info on the net I have to ask for this in writing. Really? I decided to call.
From here on, things became weird. I was connected with a friendly woman. I told her my identification number and heard her clicking on her computer. She found me and told me - fanfare! fanfare! - that I had filled in all the forms a long time ago and put them in the letter box of the tax and revenue office! They were working on them and I would soon hear from them.
WHAT ?
How could I have forgotten it? I said to the woman that this may be a sign of onsetting memory loss. She said, "You were a teacher, weren't you?" She saw that in the information on the screen. I asked her if she thought that that meant a healthy brain and a reliable memory. We both started giggling.
Then she named the school I had been a teacher at. She couldn't know that! It wasn't mentioned on the form. So she knew me from somewhere else?! I was so befuddled that I forgot to ask.
I can't speak about other parts of the country. I can only say that office clerks in my part (the south-west) are always friendly, efficient - and honest. Foreigners, especially from Southern European countries, love them. You've lost your driving license? You go to the respective office and leave with an ersatz driving license. In Italy, it can happen that you drive for months without a document which can become expensive if you're caught.
Who says that bureaucracy is a bad thing?
24 people like this
20 responses
@thelme55 (76476)
• Germany
8 Jun 18
That was much money returned from the tax. Before when my parents were still alive, we included the monthly money that we help in applying for an income tax return. The return was not bad at all.
Maybe the woman in the phone was your student before.
5 people like this
@MALUSE (69413)
• Germany
8 Jun 18
@thelme55 @andriaperry @Starmaiden I think that she would have told me if she had been my student. My guess is that she was a mother or a close relative of a student of mine.
Some years ago I had to talk with the local garbage collection office and found a mother of a pupil on the phone. I'm always glad when it turns out that I had a good relationship with the pupil in question!
I found that this was especially important when a physician who was ready to cut out my appendix asked me - when I was already on the operasting table! - if I taught class so-and-so which his daughter attended. 
7 people like this
@andriaperry (116860)
• Anniston, Alabama
8 Jun 18
Better that you forgot that you had done the tax forms than not. I bet she was a student of yours.
3 people like this
@topffer (42156)
• France
8 Jun 18
If there is a "return" on the income tax it is deduced from our following income tax, but not physically returned in France. It can happen on land taxes though : I got this year a return for several plots of vineyard damaged by hail at 90% in 2017. A 90% damage is a disaster for a winemaker, but the return was something like 30 Euros/ha
1 person likes this
@pgntwo (22408)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
8 Jun 18
So if Brexit pulls the UK completely back into the dark ages, moving to Germany might reinstil my faith in human nature... And after three years, I can get German citizenship, should I so desire.
So what part of Germany, I wonder...?
1 person likes this
@mlgen1037 (29886)
• Manila, Philippines
8 Jun 18
Hi Maluse. I do not think you are losing it. Bureaucracy still have its charms.
1 person likes this
@mlgen1037 (29886)
• Manila, Philippines
8 Jun 18
@MALUSE I agree with you on that.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (157551)
• United States
9 Jun 18
That is so weird that your paperwork is already there. My sister and I refer to having "automatic hands". We do things and our brain never seems to recognize it. It is not anything like this, though. It is the process of putting things away. So enjoy that the filling in has already been done. We have software that remembers stuff like that.
@AmbiePam (85492)
• United States
9 Jun 18
I am fascinated by Germany's history, the years of it being East and West. Could one move to West Germany if they were in East Germany, and vice versa? The first memory I have of news from Germany is when the wall came down. I also found out my dad's side of the family is largely German, but I didn't know that until later.
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
12 Jun 18
Thankfully for me I never have to fill out such forms. I guess I will do once I retire.
@MALUSE (69413)
• Germany
12 Jun 18
@garymarsh6 Same here! I was also a government employee as a teacher. Yet, we all have to do the tax thing.
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
12 Jun 18
@MALUSE If you are self employed then you would have to but as I am a government employee it is done automatically so there is no need for me to do it.They know how much I earn I do not work for an agency or moonlight so my salary is constant and rarely changes!
@Starmaiden (9311)
• Canada
8 Jun 18
Maybe she/he was a former student of yours and recognised you by your name?
1 person likes this
@jstory07 (134460)
• Roseburg, Oregon
8 Jun 18
As long as you get money back all is good. Sometimes we just forget things. Have a good day.
@just4him (306239)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
12 Jun 18
You got a good refund last year. I'm sure you were happy to learn you already filed this year and weren't late after all.
@JudyEv (325758)
• Rockingham, Australia
9 Jun 18
I guess it depends on the bureaucracy. Ours doesn't seem to be corrupt but they can take ages to get things done.
@YrNemo (20261)
•
9 Jun 18
Sounds a real mystery to me. How could you have done that form without remembering it, unless your details from last year tax got recorded for future use as in the case of pensioners in many other countries.
