A Letter from the "State"

"If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized." -- Lysander Spooner

Have you ever truly had a piece of postal mail ruin a perfectly nice trip from your mailbox? 
Here is my story of just such a ruined journey.

Once upon a time (as all good stories should start), my wonderful Mother-In-Law recently gave my wife and I a car. Gifted. Doué. Free. Gratis.

So I dutifully checked the box on the title indicating that it was a gift from a family member and transferred the title, registered the vehicle and called it good.

Nope. Nada.

Here comes the mailbox part of the story.

I received a letter from the State of Michigan, henceforth to be referred to as the "State", requesting documentation to support my claim of being related to my Mother-In-Law in order to take advantage of the tax free status of being gifted a vehicle. A rather threatening dispatch from the State with deadlines stating when to respond, penalties that would be levied, interest charges that I would incur and other overt hazards I would face if I just ignored this letter. It seems that this was an important and urgent matter that the State required me to explore. In depth. With official supporting documents. All bold faced and italicized within the letter. 
Enter rage.

It truly ruined a perfectly nice trip to my mailbox.

As I had previously checked the box on the Application for Title regarding this, with the stated penalty for falsifying this stated clearly, and I quote: “Any alteration, erasure, false statement, forgery or fraud voids this title and is a crime”, I was left scratching my head for the duplicity this letter was requiring of me to do. I take seriously the process of placing my signature on documents. Especially after such threats worth repeating here like “Any alteration, erasure, false statement, forgery or fraud voids this title and is a crime” are part of the “contract” between me and the State. After all, I was only asking for the clearly stated particular tax exempt transfer benefit that I was entitled to.
But my signature was not enough this time. My honor was not to be believed or trusted. Especially if it meant that the State would be missing out on grabbing any of my hard-earned tax dollars that it felt that it might be owed.

In fact, on review of the “Letter of Inquiry Concerning Michigan Taxes,” it supports the fact that:

• The State does not trust me.
• The State has people, namely a Mr. “Brian,” whose sole purpose is working to extort possible additional tax dollars, working in a job funded by tax dollars, in a office building paid for by citizen's flesh and blood efforts, all of which seem to be being wasted on me in this instance.
• The State wastes postage to mail out letters to honest law-abiding citizens such as myself to extort said tax dollars.
• The State wastes resources in its effort to extort tax dollars in the form of purchasing envelopes, printing a letter, inserting it in that envelope and managing a database to question its citizen’s integrity and truthfulness.
• The State requires me to further use my personal resources such as time to search and find required documentation, dollars to reproduce documentation, postage to return said documentation and the personal aggravation of the whole process. This required my Senior Citizen Parent-In-Laws to go to a safety deposit box, procure and copy their marriage license, and finally mail it to me so I could place it alongside my wife’s birth certificate and our marriage license (which required me to go out and get copies made) to confirm the connection.

This “Letter of Inquiry Concerning Michigan Taxes,” more of a “Letter of Demand” in my view, required me to ask my senior citizen Parent-In-Laws to drive to a safety deposit box, procure and copy their marriage license, place it back into the safety deposit box and mail it to me. I could then place this documentation alongside my wife’s birth certificate and our marriage license (which required me to go out and get copies made) to confirm the family connection. And finally, mail it, at my cost for postage, back to the State.

All of which I did, being a good rule-following, boot-licker that I can sometimes be. To my own shame I should add.

Yet, I somehow feel as if the State of Michigan ought to be invoiced from me for the wasted time and resources that it took for me and my loved ones to respond to this “time suck.”

And also, TAXATION IS THEFT.

Note: I will henceforth carefully consider requests by my government for increased funding through tax dollars. I will lodge my final decision on these matters in the voting booth.