What a lucky little fish am I ..........................

Wednesday I had to go to SARS, South African Revenue Service, the Tax man, the dreaded one, who for some reason found  me, due to a pension pay out , a small one, very small, as policy had lapsed, but they found me and now they reckoned, that I had not done a tax return since 2006! Duh ……… I know that, I don’t earn enough to fill out a return as per the directive they send out in 2008, last communication I have had from them. Noooooooooo, the penalties for not filling out my 2009 and 2011 was R250.00 each! Whaaaaaaat??  I received this strange communication from them, just before Christmas and phoned the main office, queering it …………… a very helpful lady tells me, that as I received an extra income in 2011, R32 00.00 pay out , juuuubiiiiduuuh, gone in 2 days on paying bills, so that darling man did not have to marry a woman with debts LOL ………….. she offered to post a directive to me. With Christmas and my ill friend and other dramas, I totally forgot all about it. Until I did my yearly spring clean here in January, oooooooooops, better get this over and done with, have a feeling, it will not just disappear by itself.

Asked our accountant what I would need to take with and clever lady that she is, advised me to get a tax directive from my medical aid and look for any medical related accounts I might have had to settle myself due to shortfalls from my scheme. Gosh, I keep these things? Of course, I file everything ………………..*chuckle*……in the bottom of a drawer, where it lies for 5 years until shucked out, no punching and clever labeling for me, stopped that years ago, when the kids came of age and their father stopped paying maintenance, after all, what would I ever need it for? Well at least I had a hefty file to take with me and realized that that specific year, I had myself paid out over R 11 000.00

So that explains some of the money from the pension, not being around for long, an overdue credit card and a mechanics bill on Kenneth’s car, explains the missing moneys of the rest *sniff*

Now I digress ….hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to SARS we go …. To my surprise the offices had been revamped since last I went there, so what a pleasure. State of the arts, computer systems, number waiting and dedicated official related to your specific query. Got a lovely lady who sweetly explained all to me, captured all my papers and then my phone goes ding dong, which I ignored, it is rude to answer a phone or look at messages when speaking to someone. …………. She says, look at your message please, I told her, it is rude, so she laughs, it is from me “ Dear Mrs Taylor, thank you for submitting your SARS 2011 return. Your balance is – R 2193.00 . ??? what??? That is what we owe you, she answers, you had overpaid, due to your medical expenses. Happy dance is now in order, right? The darling then tells me to get all my papers in order for 2009,2010 and 2012 and come see her again in the morning, as she is sure, I must have overpaid on those too. For real? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

True as Bob ….. next day I was back with everything after a frantic search in earlier mentioned drawers and a phone call to the medical aid for a copy of a tax directive.

My phone kept binging ………………. God answers prayers in mysterious ways and sometimes even use the tax man to answer them.