Nonwrestler Blog

Some Good Ol' Bureaucratic Nonsense

So I got a letter from IRD the other day. I paid off my student loan last year, and this letter said:

1. IRD had made interest write-offs on my student loan last year, which I wasn't entitled to because I wasn't living in NZ at the time.

2. They had now reversed each of 4 write-offs.

3. They had also reversed the reversals of the write-offs. i.e. made a one-off payment into my loan account to bring the balance back to zero.

4. They would be sending me a statement soon itemising what they were already telling me, but they just wanted to explain what I was about to see on my statement.

Then I got another 2 letters.

The first one was the statement, which:

1. Confirmed all of the above.

2. Had an opening balance of $2.78 in credit and a final transaction that was a debit of $2.78.

"Hang on, I thought, I've been gypped out of $2.78!"

The second letter was a cheque for $2.78.

Wonder what the difference is between that $2.78 and the costs associated with the write-offs made in error, the decision to reverse them, the discussions about how to record the reversal of the reversals, the typing out of the initial personalised letter and the subsequent processing and sending of the 3 letters...

Labels: life

Posted at 11:04