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Tag Archives: self-employed

My Ongoing Obamacare Nightmare

04 Sunday May 2014

Posted by ts4jc in About Me

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ACA, application, bureaucracy, bureaucrat, Federal Government, government, Health Insurance Exchange, income tax return, incompetence, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Medicaid, net income, New York State, nightmare, Obamacare, Obamacare nightmare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, privacy issues, proof of income, self-employed, self-employment income, Social Security Administration, Tax return (United States), United States, verification of income

Back in November, one of my clients asked for help with his Obamacare application.  Like me, he is both a New York resident and has self-employment income.  It would be a good learning experience for me, as I would be putting in my own application soon.  I found the New York health exchange easy to use, living up to the early reviews that it was far superior to the severely flawed Federal website.  It was very responsive each time we clicked on a link and soon we had a completed application except for the choice of plan.

A few weeks later in early December, I confidently ventured onto the same site for my own application.  Once again, entering personal data was quick and easy.  Then it came time to answer the income question: did I expect my 2014 income to be the same as in 2012?  And here was where the nightmare began.

When my client reached this question, he answered “yes”.  Apparently this government agency has access to your 2012 income tax return, but hey, no privacy concern there, right?  Anyway, that answer bypassed a number of additional steps and questions, as I was to find out.

My answer to this question was “no”.  While I did have a net loss of clients in 2013 (some related to my transition and some not) and some associated loss of income, the major reason for a decrease in income was that I had a project in 2011 for which I was able to charge about twenty times my usual average fee.  Three-quarters of my fee had been paid in 2012.  It is highly unlikely that this type of work will come my way again.

To be expected, I was taken to pages on the site to provide my estimated 2014 income.  Unexpectedly, this was where things started to fall apart.

First of all, it did not want to take my income as a self-employed individual.  I found I was only able to enter it if I said that I was an employee of my own company.  A further complication came because it was insisting that I provide data for my last three months of income and expenses.  As a tax preparer, providing my income and expenses for September-November would have vastly understated my net income.  There seemed to be no understanding that some people have seasonal businesses.

But the biggest problem of all was that the site kept timing out on me and returning me to an earlier screen.  I type rapidly and had all the information at my fingertips.  There was no significant delay in my data entry that should have caused this error.

Admitting defeat, I reluctantly called their help line number.  Soon, I was speaking to a capable agent who was more than willing to enter the information that I gave her.  In minutes, I felt vindicated.  She was getting the same time out problems.  Soon, we reached a point (about our fourth or fifth try), where she said that we would try it one more time and if it didn’t work she was going to call tech support.

For some reason, this time it worked.  It was like the Dilbert cartoon where the pointy-haired boss is telling Dilbert that he keeps clicking on a link and it doesn’t work.  Just as Dilbert starts to quote the line that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, the boss clicks again and it works.

So now all the income and expense data is entered.  At this point, she tells me that we cannot proceed any further as they want verification of the financial information I just provided.  Thinking quickly, I ask her what will be acceptable as verification.  I know this might be a problem as my business income comes in the form of about 80 checks a year from almost the same number of individuals.  None of them are required to issue me a 1099.  And there is little reason for me to incur the cost of a separate business bank account, so I don’t have one.

She replies that this is outside of her area, but that in about 7-10 business days, I should receive an e-mail providing this information.  Unfortunately, I received no such e-mail and that time frame took me to December 23, the original deadline by which you had to have completed your application to be covered by January 1 (which they magnanimously extended one day).  There was no way I was getting through on the phone then.

So I called back between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  This time, I got an all too familiar government bureaucrat bozo.  When I asked what I could use as verification of my income and expenses, he replied to my amazement, “We don’t tell you what to send.”

Keep in mind that I worked for HUD for three years, a local housing authority for four years, and then was a stock broker for over twenty years which meant that my activities ultimately came under regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Federal Government (and I had to know those regulations to pass my licensing exam).  And for the past twenty-five years, I have dealt with the IRS, the NY State Department of Taxation and Finance, and New York’s counterparts in a few other states in my work as a paid tax preparer.  Finally, as part of my transition, I needed to know Social Security Administration and NY Department of Motor Vehicles verification requirements.  Never has there been a time when there were not clear regulations on what could be used as verification of statements made on an application.

Even so, I had no basis on which to argue with this agent.  So I am trying to figure out what I can use as verification.  Making a spreadsheet of my income and expenses would have been easy.  But I dismissed it as self-serving.  Anyone could type numbers and descriptions into Excel without a shred of truth in it.

What followed was Kafkaesque with a touch of Seinfeld plot line.  The results were as poor as could be expected under such circumstances.

There was only one way that came to mind as to how I could verify my income in 2013 as being less than in 2012: bank statements.  My bank statements for each year would show that the deposits in 2013 were less than in 2012 (by the differential I had stated in my application).  I was able to download monthly bank statements online from my bank account in a format that was acceptable for uploading to my Obamacare application.

However, there were three problems with this method.  The first was the amount of documents I would need to send.  My bank’s website did not provide a filter so I could retrieve only the deposits.  So I had to upload the entire bank statement.  Twenty-four months’ worth of bank statements at three pages each would mean a lot of pages for some bureaucrat to review.

The second problem was directly related to my transition.  Knowing who I might be dealing with, I wanted to make it as foolproof as possible.  The name on the account in 2012 did not match the name in 2013.  I could not count on the reviewer noting that the account number did not change.  So I uploaded a cover letter with an explanation and also uploaded my name change documents.  Now some reviewer has an awful lot of information about me.  I could just see him or her calling over another reviewer: “Get a load of this person’s application!”

Finally, there is the fact that deposits show income but not expenses.  And while 99% of my deposits are business-related, many of the expenses are for personal items.  I explained that the expenses are independent of income and are basically the same from year to year.  Since the expenses are approximately the same in 2013 as in 2012 (which information they already had), the deposit differential is essentially the same as my decrease in net income.

I was able to upload all this in the first week of January.  And then I waited, and waited and waited some more for the great State of New York to reply.

Knowing I would be getting much busier over the next two and a half months, I called back at the end of January.  I figured that four weeks was enough time to expect my information to have been reviewed.  This time, the person on the other end of the phone was very competent in her job.

She noted the large number of documents that I had uploaded and said it would take a few minutes before they would all be available.  While we waited, I was able to ask her a few questions about Medicaid and how it worked.  Finally, she told me that she was able to see on her screen that they were in the process of reviewing my documents, which means they should be finished soon.

And soon they were: the documentation I supplied was not considered sufficient proof of my self-employment income.  When I received a hard copy of this notice, it came with a document that set forth all the acceptable means of verifying any statement you might make on your application: the very information I was unable to receive a month earlier.  They wanted more hard proof, not just my statement that expenses were unchanged.

So I did something that I hadn’t done for at least 30 years (since becoming self-employed made my tax return more complicated), if ever.  I was preparing my own tax return at the beginning of February instead of working on my clients’ returns.  And as soon as I learned that my e-filed return had been accepted by the IRS, on February 11, I submitted my entire, five page, 2013 Federal Income Tax return as my most up to date proof of my income and expenses.  And I sent a copy of the proof that my e-filed return had been accepted).

I went back to the waiting game.  Around March 18, I called.  It was another trip to Bozoland.  First, he told me that they hadn’t even started reviewing my latest submission.  Okay, there’s nothing he could do about that.  But then he made the most ridiculous statement.  I mentioned the irony that I would have qualified for Medicaid using the income on my 2012 return.  (I was told this by the competent agent on my previous call.)  His response?  He actually told me that you don’t apply for Medicaid through the website that I was calling about!  Since the client I had helped months earlier had his Medicaid benefit card by now, I knew this was patently absurd.

By the time April 15 came and went, I still had not heard anything.  As it turned out, my health care nightmare was only beginning.

Praise God that for those of us who are in Christ, we are only sojourners here and we have a better country to look forward to.

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. – Revelation 22:1-2

God bless,

Lois

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Acceptance and Rejection – personal

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by ts4jc in General Transsexual issues

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Amanda Richards, coming out, Harry Mudd, self-employed, Spock, Star Trek, Star Trek Original Series, Transition, Transsexual

During season two of the original Star Trek series, the crew of the Enterprise has its second encounter with the sleazy criminal, Harry Mudd.  This time, Mudd is the ruler of a planet of androids who serve him.  One of those androids hijacks the Enterprise and brings it to the android planet.

Eventually, Mudd discovers that what he thought was a paradise is actually a gilded prison.  Neither he nor the crew of the Enterprise can leave the planet.

A plan is hatched to overcome the central computer in control.  The idea is that if they can overload the central computer’s circuits, it will disable the entire network.  Then they can reprogram and the Enterprise can leave.

To accomplish the overload, they engage in a series of illogical stunts and statements.  Even Mr. Spock plays against type and tells a pair of identical female androids, “I love you, but I hate you.” The one who Spock hated replies, “But, we’re absolutely identical!” Spock responds, “Yes, that’s why I hate you.”

Of course, the plan eventually works.

One of the realities for every transsexual who embarks on transition is the coming out phase.  For younger children and teenagers, this generally means coming out in school, their neighborhood, perhaps a place of worship and to family.  For an adult, life has increased the number of circles of connection: college or trade school and the workplace would be the most common.  But other friendships have also developed over time in some of the following: social clubs, military, neighborhood groups, volunteer organizations, religious institutions, professional organizations, your clients, your service providers, friends of one’s spouse and even people you meet simply going through life.

In a separate post, I will discuss coming out to family in greater detail (also with a Star Trek reference, ironically).  For now, I want to focus on the simple idea of acceptance and rejection when we come out to our immediate world.

One of the things I was told by my gender counselor and others in the TG community is that you cannot accurately predict who will accept and who will reject.  Like Mr. Spock and the identical androids, it is difficult to apply logic to the situation.  Perhaps, it is simply that we do not know enough about the other person.  For one thing, most of us were not comfortable to casually broach the subject to test the future waters.

Furthermore, the initial reaction is not always etched in stone.  People who swear they will always be there for you are suddenly MIA.  And people who initially reject may come back to you, contrite, apologetic or even tearful.

In my case, I was fairly accurate in my assessments, perhaps with help from the Holy Spirit.  But I can’t claim to have had 100% accuracy.  What I found in retrospect was that those who rejected tended to have a strong emotional attachment to me or some other way they elevated my position in their life: father figure, hoped to marry me, best guy friend, mentor or strong male Christian leader.

As a member of both a conservative evangelical church and a conservative evangelical ministry, I knew I had some difficult ground ahead.  I voluntarily resigned from the ministry simply because I was admitting I did not meet one of the primary qualifications: it is a men’s ministry.  About a month later, I told a select group of leaders the real reason for my resignation.  I did so for two reasons.  First of all, these were the people I felt closest to in the ministry.  Second, I had a client who was a fellow member of the ministry.  I knew the people he was likely to go to when he found out.  I wanted them to find out from me first.

Except for the client, I was not looking to stay in any of their lives.  But I did get two messages of support.  In one case, we have stayed in touch.  From almost all the rest, there was silence.

Sometimes there are unexpected victories.  There is an elderly couple that I met through the ministry and have known for over 20 years.  He was like a spiritual father to me.  Based on age and my knowledge of his beliefs, I calculated that it was highly likely they would not understand or accept my transition.  I specifically asked those that I told in the ministry to not tell them, lest it hurt them deeply.

Out of hardness of heart, one of them went out of his way to tell them.  To my delight (and probably his great surprise), they did not reject me.  I am pleased to say that I am in regular fellowship with them, perhaps even closer than before.  They even have my new picture on their wall next to other family pictures and cards.

I had no clients within the small church I attended.  But when I came out to my pastor and his wife, and they were the first people I came out to at the start of my transition journey, I told them that I would not be the cause of a church split.  When I started living full-time as Lois 13 months ago, I voluntarily left that church.  Had I caused an uproar, odds are that I would have eventually left anyway, but the pastor would have been the one to pay the price in more ways than one.  We are still friends and I would never knowingly bring harm to him.  And the Lord led me to a new church (with the help of another Christian I came out to) where I am very happy.

The elderly couple was not the only time that I was calculating odds of acceptance.  In fact, that was the situation with each client I told.  My livelihood depended upon the frequency of my being accepted.  Many of you have one employer and one workplace in your life.  In terms of your livelihood, your coming out begins and ends there.  It’s all or nothing for you.

On the other hand, I am self-employed.  I prepare close to 100 income tax returns for about 80 clients.  Mentally, I began to put each client into acceptance categories: probably, possibly, 50-50 and probably not.  With some of my key clients, I was able to meet with them in person or through a website that allowed them to join a conference call and see whatever was visible on my computer.  These are people for whom I prepare multiple returns and who sometimes refer other business to me.  And I came out to a client with whom I am close and who is also a mental health professional.  I had a 100% success rate with this group.

But with that many clients (about 15% who live outside of a reasonable driving distance), there was no way I could tell everyone personally.  To those I could not contact personally, I sent a two page letter emphasizing: the trials that brought me to this place in my life; that this would not diminish the quality of my work; that during the previous tax season, I had already basically given myself over to being Lois in my mind and I had the most efficient and organized tax season ever.

In addition, I included a photo card using three images from my photo shoot with Amanda Richards (True Colors Makeup Artistry, Bethlehem, PA – I highly recommend her for makeup skills, photography technique and her ability to put at ease a newbie in front of a camera).  Selecting those three photos took longer than I expected.  But it was worth it.  I feel that it helped some of my clients who had never met a transsexual before.  They could see that I was still a real person, not a caricature or some preconceived image they might have picked up from the media.

An interesting and serendipitous result from my sending the pictures was that a large percentage of my clients did not recognize me.  (My new name is quite different from my old name.)  Some only realized who it was when they read the letter.  Originally, most thought I had sold the business and this was the person I was recommending.  One person thought I had gotten married and my wife was becoming part of the business.  Another thought I might be her husband’s cousin of the same first name.

I can only assume that for four of my clients (because they have no recollection of receiving the information and they originally contacted me by my old name), they opened it, saw the picture and assumed I was someone looking to build a tax practice.  Thinking to themselves that they already had a tax preparer, they threw everything away without reading the letter.  Three of the four stayed with me.

Finally, for my Christian clients only, I included an additional write up on what I was discovering regarding what the Bible had to say about being transsexual.  They are some of the forerunners for my blog posts on the same topic.  You are getting an expanded and improved version of that initial discourse.  The Lord continues to reveal things to me over time.

I also sent out a modified version of the photo card and basic letter as my Christmas message to non-client friends who lived too far away to tell in person.  They were sent out very close to Christmas because of everything else that was going on in my life.  But I received one Christmas card of support from a procrastinator in the sending of cards (as I usually am).  I received some other phone calls or e-mails of support and one e-mail rejection.  I have heard nothing at all from four others.  I guess I will find out if I get a Christmas card from them this year.

Getting back to the clients, I received an immediate outpouring of support from about 20% of the clients (the 80-20 rule strikes again).  Then on New Year’s Eve, I received a negative letter (but that client eventually stayed with me).  Then there was a cluster of negatives (from three Christians who know each other well).  Finally, there was an agonizingly slow dribbling in of clients who contacted me at their usual time (and a few who were later than usual because of a lot going on in their lives).  In the final tally, I lost some business but I also gained some new clients from referrals.  One dear Christian client made an extra effort to find new business for me when she heard that other clients were dropping me.  A higher percentage of clients came back to me than I expected, and my business didn’t suffer as much as I feared.

I now have a display ad in our local LGBT friendly business guide.  I am hopeful that it will help build back more of the business I lost.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:3-5

God bless,

Lois

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