In my previous post on crime statistics, several commenters (here and over on Instapundit) noted that Louis Rossmann had also put up a video covering the final straw that caused him to decide to leave New York: an audit he was subjected to after making a video discussing how incompetent New York taxing authorities were. I had seen it, but it was a bit long and I already had the crime statistics video cued up. Here it is by way of prologue for the next video.
The upshot is that, after having millions in fines and the possible destruction of his business dangling over his head for over a year thanks to New York authorities, the audit found that Rossman’s reporting had a 0.11% error rate.
If you thought that was the end of it, you underestimate the penny-ante fury of petty bureaucrats against those who would dare to criticize them. New York has launched a spite audit of Rossmann on his way out of the state:
Yet another excellent reason for business owners to leave New York as soon as possible…
Tags: Democrats, Louis Rossmann, Regulation, spite audit, video
None of this surprises me. I have come to the conclusion that it is technically impossible to correctly file a NY tax return for all but the simplest cases. The rules are vague, require information that is impossible to obtain, and sometimes contradict themselves. The rules also assume that the government in Albany does its job correctly, which they often don’t. Particularly hilarious are the requirements for electronic filing. The state wants the efficiency of automation in the tax filing process, while at the same time filling the tax code with all manner of discretionary policy that makes reliable automation impossible. They can’t even get the paper forms correct some of the time.
You can get an idea of the mentality in Albany from the infamous Bitlicense. Merely recording every transaction in detail and reporting everything is not sufficient. You have to hire compliance officers to do all the state’s investigative work for them, and police the behavior of your suppliers and customers, at your own expense.
It took about 7 years to unwind all the personal and professional ties I have to the area, but this year will be the last that I file a NY resident return. I have arranged my escape.
20 years ago, I was doing work for a local power company. They had a similar problem of improperly recording refunds to customers to their detriment. They ended up with millions in cash they could not account, while at the same time pissing off customers by claiming they hadn’t paid bills. All this because they had developed an in-house database system based on COBOL, and the developer didn’t have enough space to record transaction IDs. Fortunately for them, we (a coworker, who was also a friend of mine from college) not only found the error, but we also found a transactional database they kept track of all digital money transfers and had the missing data to account for the millions in cash.
Unfortunately, I was hired by the Software Quality Manager, whose team missed this error, so I was fired after finding the mistake. I could complain, but I got better jobs from better businesses. The Software Quality Manager had to deal with his divorce and the divorce of the woman with whom he had an affair. Karma.
I’ve followed Rossman’s Youtube channel for a long while and he’s done yeoman’s work highlighting NYS & NYC’s collective madness. I’m glad I got the hell of out NY in 2005. Would never move back permanently.
The link to your previous post on crime statistics no workie.
Works for me. Try reloading.
Welcome to Texas Mr. Rossman. I hope he votes GOP when he gets here.