This post kicks of a new category, "Rant & Cuss." This post (and probably most in this category) will contain lots of swearing and invective, so if you'd rather not see such things (Hi Grandma!), do not read on.
Elizabeth and I own a two-family house, and we rent out the first floor unit. For the most part, being a landlord hasn't been too bad. Finding tenants takes some work, and of course there can be occasional large expenses if an oven goes kaput. But mainly, it's not too bad (although it's debateable whether or not it's profitable).
But the gawdamn regulations piss me off sometimes. You have to put tenants' security deposit money into a separate account. Fine. But the bank paperwork to open a new bank account is fucking ridiculous! If I as landlord am the only one with power over the account (tenants are just listed as "beneficiaries"), then why in hell does the bank need two forms of ID from the tenants, PLUS their signatures? And a W-9 form? Geezus! Yes, I know the IRS needs to get their greedy little pissant hands on all your income, but you know what? Bank accounts aren't paying SHIT for interest these days. Over the last couple of years, tenants have been earning less than $10 total over the course of the year, and it needs to be split between them! Does the IRS really care about an extra $5 in income? If so, they should take their heads out of their asses and get some real priorities.
One of our new tenants moved out and was replaced by someone else, so being the conscientious person I am, I went to the bank to switch the names on the account (the new and old tenant handled the transfer of money between themselves, rather than going through the bank). I stupidly thought it would be simple. No, it turns out that the bank morons require me to close the old account and open a whole fucking new account! And worst of all, they couldn't re-use all the old paperwork from when I opened the account less than two months ago - I'd need to get my tenants to fill out the forms AGAIN.
And you know what the kicker is? After finding all of the above out, I asked about just taking the old tenant's name off the current account (I'd asked because for some reason, a previous account like this had only had one tenant's name on it), then I could consider switching the accounts to have the new tenant's name later, after getting the paperwork filled out. Taking one person's name off the account wasn't so bad. But then I find out that the bank is reporting the interest income to the IRS for only ONE of the tenants anyway. What the fuck is the reason to have both tenants' names on the account (along with having submitted their social security numbers, among other info) if you're not even going to report the interest income for both of them? Do you just enjoy wasting my time?
Speaking of time: I spent 45 minutes in the bank today dealing with this shit. When I first opened the account, the workers at the bank didn't know how to open this kind of account, and I had to make multiple trips to the bank. In total, I probably wasted 2 or 3 hours opening the account in the first place, plus there's the time it took to get paperwork etc. from the tenants. So let's call it a nice, round 4 hours worth of people's time. All for ten fucking measly dollars in income, of which the IRS would see AT MOST $3.
Does this make any kind of economic sense? Oh yeah, I forgot, you're the big bad fucking government, you have the power to require infinite work on the part of citizens, no matter how small the pay-off is to the country. Moronic asshat of a bureaucracy.
Hmm, after re-reading this post, it seems to me that I need to work on my cussing skills. Ranting language should be more colorful. :-)
Posted by Tom Nugent at October 29, 2004 03:21 PMThis rant paid for in part by Nugent for Congress 2006.....Tom Nugent wrote this add and supports its content.....no illegal contributions were made to support this ad......no animals were hurt in the writing of this political statement (though judging by its length, the cats might have started feeling lonely for a time).....no money from oil, tobacco, or the medical-industrial complex was accepted for this ad......some money from a lawyer supported the writing of this ad (but she's not one of those amb'lance chasers, so its OK).
Posted by: Tom at October 29, 2004 09:51 PM