On Jun 9, 6:05 pm, snipped-for-privacy@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote:
Can money be sent to your PO box?
In Penna and NJ, regular food (not junk food [ie candy and soda] or restaurant food) is exempt for sales tax. Also most clothing. I don't know why this isn't that way in all places.
Your lucky you can get Social Security Disability. Some years ago they steeply raised the qualification. Most people were turned down and had to appeal, which meant they had to get an expensive lawyer.
One day I was at the post office when a frail man asked me for help to interpret a letter. It was from the Disability determination unit. It was printed in all caps and completely (at least to me) confusing. How could a frail or uneducated people make sense of it? I was angry. Fortunately, at least the letter was signed by a real person with a real direct telephone (not a answer battery) number. I circled the name and number and suggested the man call her to discuss what needs to be done.
Back in the Depression, the New Deal created an alphabet soup of government programs to help people in trouble. These programs indeed literally saved thousands of lives (and the country from revolution). But they created a bureacratic nightmare that exists to this day.
During WW II the government paid a stipend to the dependents of soldiers. A massive bureacracy was created with an enormous IBM information processing data center (IBM's biggest set up). One thing that bothered me was that if a soldier was killed, the checks stopped immediately, indeed, they would go through the mail trays (envelopes ready to go out) and search out checks already printed and stuffed, to pull payment. (This was detailed in their Annual Report). I guess they had to do it that way to be fair, rather than let one family slide for 3 months and another family not slide at all depending on how fast the death notice came through.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To answer your first question; yes, asolutely on the address: PO Box 50, Independence, KS 67301. If you use that address, obviously a check is safer than cash.In Kansas, 'food stamps' (actually an ATM card called 'Vision' with a credit card number in the Discover Card range, i.e. '6034xxxxxxxxxxxxx' is used. Those cards are exempt from sales tax and CAN be used for 'junk food', but NOT for 'ready to eat' food, for example microwave sandwhiches in convenience stores, nor tobacco nor liquor, nor animal (or any non-human edible) food. I do _not_ receive any variation on 'food stamps', either state or federal. The latter of these are none the less administerd by state welfare programs, as agents for the federal government. Although the federal (versus state) requirements are a bit looser, my 'income' (almost entirely SSD, as paltry as it is) is still too high.
As a separate thing, state of Kansas chooses to rebate a flat-rate $72.00 annually to senior citizens or certified disabled persons against the food sales tax they paid all year long at the cash register. If I had a Vision Card and swiped it at the cash register, food sales tax is automatically calculated from the total amount due (when the grocery purchase is deducted from the allotment given.) If I tried to claim the $72.00 also, or 'double-dipped' I am sure before too many years they would catch up with me. As a senior, either I get the $72 once a year _OR_ I pay no food sales tax at all with the Vision card; but not both.
One good thing about living in a small town like Independence is that everyone knows everyone else and many times are friends. It also helps that we have a full service Social Security office here in our town. The office has _three_ employees plus the male manager.(Two clerks and a 'service representative'). The manager is also a member of the 'Friends of the Independence Public Library' committee, the same as myself, and perhaps has other pursuasions similar to my own. I know every person (all three of them!) working in that office. We do not socialize, but we know each other and are friendly aquaintences. Maybe I pass one of them in a local restaurant and nod, etc. When I go in their office, there are never any other clients there, or maybe one or two. Talking to a woman working there one day I asked her, "Have you ever been to Chicago, or worked for Social Security there?" She said, "no, but I have heard the SSA office there is a large place." I explained to her that customers go in, take a number and wait 30-45 minutes for the number to be called, _then_ go stand in a line behind other customers approaching one of several booths with service reps. She clucked her tongue, rolled her eyes and said it sounded pretty awful. Yeah, I guess so. There are definite advantages to rural s.e. Kansas culture, not the least of which is lots of personal aquaintences in 'good' places. Everyone, literally, knows everyone else in this town.
Now days also, Social does not mail out _nearly_ as many checks as they used to. They much prefer direct deposit which gives them up to a matter of a few hours the day before payment to put a stop on the payment if they wish. And payments are scattered all through the month. If your payment previously was on the third of each month, then it stayed that way. But 'newer' clients (like myself) fall into payment 'groups' based on our social security numbers. Some on the first of each month, some on the third, and for most of us, the four payment groups are the first four Wednesdays of each month. I am in the fourth (Wednesday) pay group. If First Wednesday is also the first or third day of the month, then checks are issued to first pay group on the second day of the new month, otherwise if Wednesday X pay group is a holiday, the checks are delivered on Tuesday. In other words they space them all out over a month. I always get my direct deposits between the 22nd of the month and the 28th for the _prior_ month. And they do not hesitate to pull it back if, in their opinion, you have lost your entitlement. They do not pay if you go to a nursing home under a state welfare program; they do not pay if you have been convicted of a crime and are currently incarcerated. They are getting quite tough. I never have a single problem with Social ... the deposits are always in the bank on the day they say they will be.
I did have a hassle with food sales tax/homestead tax rebate once, in
2002. I had put in the form at the county clerk's office early in January, which means the refunds come in about two weeks via mail, but in that year, 2002, instead I got back a copy of a warrant from the accounts recievable offset office of the state treasurer. It seems the City of Junction City, KS (where I was at when I had the aneurysm) had filed a tax refund offset for the overdue ambulance bill between Junction City and Topeka for a few hundred dollars. I got Junction City to release the warrant, and shortly thereafter the state treasurer sent my food/homstead tax rebates to me. PAT]