Friday, January 30, 2009

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: This is the day that comes four times a year when I'm reminded that bureacracy, had it not stumbled upward out of the primordial ooze on its own, would have been invented by Franz Kafka anyway. The occasion for this quarterly reflection is the filing of employment tax forms, which in California consist of a Form DE6 and a Form DE88. To make this as fraught as possible with possibilities for error, California requires that the DE88 be sent to a PO box number ending in 6 and that the DE6 be sent to a PO box number ending in 88.

Also, you can buy blank W-2 forms that can be used with a typewriter, or you can avoid that completely and use either government-sponsored or government-approved third-party forms that can be printed on standard 8.5 x 11" paper (note: you have to use the right fillable forms if you're using the government-sponsored option, and watch out for the fillable forms that the government helpfully provides that cannot be used because why would you expect that you could actually use the government-provided fillable form?). But if you use the online forms, beware, because the employee's copies of the W-2 must be perforated for easy separation and must not be cut with scissors, which rules out standard 8.5 x 11" paper.

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