Last year, I spent a little over $13,000 on childcare. I know this, because I have my tax documents sitting on the desk. My adjusted gross income was a few hundred dollars shy of 27k. This figure doesn’t include either the SSI I receive for Ivan ($617 a month for 2007) or the child support I receive ($415 a month*). Even with those figures included, though, I spent a third of my gross income on childcare.

There is a story waiting to be written about the costs of good quality childcare, and the fact that, as outrageous as it seems, the amount I paid for the care my kids received was reasonable. There’s a story waiting to be written about how childcare providers are not making money hand-over-fist, either. And a story about how, according to the wonderful Katha Pollit, childcare in America is “for women—women who if middle-class shouldn’t have jobs and if low-income shouldn’t have kids.”

This is, instead, about something murkier and more problematic, an issue that often inspires sleep rather than outrage. It’s about bureaucracy used as a weapon.

Late winter of this year, I gathered up all my tax documents and moseyed down to my accountant. And by “accountant” I mean the guy I always see at H&R Block. He’s good, a younger guy who can explain things really well. He’s also got a super sense of humor and laughs at my jokes. I make it a point to see him every tax season. This year he spent some time explaining what kinds of things I could deduct as a writer, and what I should do to take more of them next year. He explained the rules of about the use of a home office and a computer. He high-fived me when I mentioned the book I’m working on and we joked about the various ways I could fandangle a movie deal out of something I would write (“How about Roseanne meets Jack-Ass?” “I feel like that might be gauche, don’t you? “All I’m saying is you can’t say it’s been done before!”).

One of the things we do during these yearly meetings is discuss my childcare expenses. First year I went to him, back when I was in the midst of the divorce and Giselle was still in pre-school, I shook my head as he entered the childcare amounts into the computer.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s so high,” I said.

Rob looked through some of my papers, thought for a moment, and then said, “it isn’t, really. Three kids, one of them full-time. A lot of people spend more.” He typed a few more numbers, and then added, “And Ivan is disabled, right? You can’t just send him anywhere.”

He was right. Ivan is autistic, and even a “mild” autistic like Ivan needs well-trained caregivers and a low teacher-kid ratio. He needs structure and a way to escape over-stimulation—which are hard criteria to meet at “lower end” daycares. The places the kids have gone are all part of the university where I attended school and now work. In essence, they are subsidized in small and large ways by the university, and they have better resources at a lower cost because of it.  I wasn’t overspending on childcare; I was getting a deal.

This year, Rob and I discussed the fact that while the childcare cost was high, it represented a good chunk of full-time care for three kids, something I wasn’t going to have to do this summer. Rob also said, “You’ll get a lot of this back. The Working Family Credit** is really for people like you.”

Which is what we both thought. In the previous year, for my 2006 taxes, my refund had been held up significantly because the state of Oregon demanded I send proof of payment. I had included in my return documents from my childcare providers showing the amount I paid. Despite this, I had to send further proof, in the form of an accounting sheet of every single charge made to my account, and every payment. My childcare providers keep records like this, and the office managers printed them up, signed them, and we sent them in.

This year, as Rob and I finished up my return, he thumbed through the childcare expense paperwork. The kids had gone to two centers, but had spent the most time at one, and I had asked the office manager to print up a break down of charges by child, and by type of charge, and then sign it. Rob looked over it now, and said, “They’re going to flag it anyway.”

“Why?”

“It’s what they do. They flag almost all of the Working Family Credit returns now.”

He was right. Months later, I received a letter from the Oregon Department of Revenue. Not only was the information I had provided not enough, it wasn’t even within the realm of what they now demanded. They wanted a copy of every single check I had written to a childcare provider for the year. They also wanted a copy of every single bank statement for the year, and on said bank statements, every corresponding check had to be highlighted.

It might be a good time to point out that my childcare providers were all part of the University of Oregon. Also known as the State of Oregon. Also known as a relative of the agency who was committing the childcare expense version of the Spanish Inquisition. In essence, if a state agency can issue a document detailing expenses, and a state employee can sign said document, and then another state employee can cast considerable doubt upon the veracity of said document, then we’ve got a problem, Houston. That isn’t just the basis of this small system; it’s the basis of the entire government! That’s how it freakin’ works, for god’s sakes! People sign documents and they send them and if you need more of a verification YOU CALL THEM. What, are we back in the Stone Age now?

The only reasonable assumption from this behavior is that the state simply doesn’t want to make good on these refunds. Rob the Accountant repeated this in idea and spirit several times. “Everyone gets these flagged. And a lot of people just can’t get everything together to get their money.”

Even knowing the system was trying to screw me and not make coffee in the morning, I had a hard time tracking down all of that paperwork. Most of the bank statements were in one place, but the going through all the duplicate checks was something approaching a nightmare. By this time, spring term was in full swing. I was working full-time teaching 74 students, and some weeks I approached the 60-hour mark. I ran the kids around, took them to soccer or friends’ houses or the dentist. I sat on the Parent Teacher Council, working to keep our neighborhood school open. I wrote a handful of essays for a few jobs. I, essentially, tried to live three lives at one time while gathering tax information for the Department of Revenue.

I am now convinced there’s a special section of Hell where one has to do this, forever and ever. Because it sucked, and sucked mightily.

And it meant that the documents didn’t all get compiled until early August. I had to go over them several times to make sure they were all there, and I was forced to go to my bank for two statements that I could not locate. I spent an epoch searching for two checks that I never found the duplicates for, but decided that, in the end, this lack of evidence would only result in a potentially smaller refund.

In the interim, though, the State of Oregon had changed my refund. From $5716 to $300. The letter, which I had to read several times, said I could appeal the decision, though.

I took all of my information down to my tax office. Rob was on a long vacation, which meant another accountant helped me. There was a 30-day window for appeal, and we were near the end of it (the smaller refund had come while I was gone at my writing retreat). We faxed over the appeal.

And I never heard anything else.

Yesterday, I called the Oregon Department of Revenue. The guy who helped me said there wasn’t anything in the records about my appeal and fax, but that there wouldn’t be because “[they] don’t keep records like that.”

“But,” I said, “how do you know if you’ve received something from a taxpayer?”

“Oh, it comes through the system eventually. But it’s never, like, noted on the file until a decision has been made.”

“But, what about the deadlines people have to meet?”

“Did you send yours in before the 30 days?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it should be fine. I mean, like, I can’t confirm it’s here or anything. But as long as you trust your accountant…”

“How long will it take to go through?”

“Oh, lots of people are in the same boat as you are. We’re backed up. So about 3-4 months.”

On the letter I received from the Department of Revenue was the notation that after 30 days, I could only appeal through the Oregon Tax Court, and only by requesting a complaint form. I had 120 days to file that documentation if an appeal hadn’t been received. If one had, then it was 90 days. Essentially, if I waited to see if the Oregon Department of Revenue had received the documents and appeal, and if they lost it, or misplaced it, or it wasn’t received, then I’d likely lose my rights for appeal, and, as the final sentence of the letter said all “adjustments [would be] final.” In my case, that would be a loss of $5,416.

“I’m supposed to trust that you’ll process it on time and that you even have it now?”

“I’m sure if your accountant sent it, we have it. I just can’t confirm it.”

“You’re asking me to take an awfully large gamble. If I trust your office, and I’m wrong, the time for appeal will pass, and I’ll have no recourse.”

“You can fax it to me,” he said, “but I’ll just route it to the right person.”

“It’s already past the 30 days for the original method of appeal. Faxing it to you won’t help if you hadn’t received it.”

He paused. “Oh. Yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.”

I submit, for the record, that the only thing worse than hearing “I hadn’t thought of that” from the Tax Guy is “Uh-oh, I think the condom broke.” Not that I know or anything.

I hung up shortly thereafter and promptly called the Oregon Tax Court’s Magistrate Division, the place where I’ll have to file an appeal. A complaint form is headed to my hot little hands as we speak, and I imagine that it will again suck, and suck mightily, to complete it.

This is a fairly dull tale, except for the specific elements which provide the drama. One, when your adjusted gross income is $27k, $5,700 is a lot of money. I’ve been dreaming of that money, needing it desperately. My Subaru has 207,000 miles on it, is dripping oil like a penguin off the shore of Alaska, and is 17 years old. I have no computer of my own. I’m behind on everything. That money—it was what I’ve counted on all these months to help with a few big ticket items that I’d have an impossible time buying otherwise.

More than that, the summer is winding down, in its own brutal way. I have three weeks before my first paycheck comes in again. I have money out there funneling slowly toward me for writing, but it’s taking forever. Rent is overdue. The electricity bill is overdue. Ivan’s medical bills will surely start rolling in soon, and I’m hoping that the combination of my insurance and the state insurance he’s on (because of his disability) will cover all or most of it. That refund is not some “charity;” it’s mine. And I can’t get to it, no matter what I do. That’s the rub here: explaining the circumstances is time consuming and difficult and dry, and a little boring. But the consequences of what is happening are huge.

I keep thinking, too, of what I’ve been told about these credits. Rob, my accountant, who tells me that the state simply makes it harder and harder for these taxpayers to get their refunds every year. Eric, the tax guy who noted, with no small amount of nonchalance, the numbers of people who are “in the same boat” I am. How many people would have sufficiently meticulous records for childcare costs? How many people who make $27,000 even hire an accountant who could help them? How many of these people just either don’t understand or don’t have the resources to meet these demands? The state of Oregon is engaging in robbery made possible by a confusing and irresponsible bureaucracy. It’s not a sex scandal in the Oval Office, or a pregnant teenager, but it’s affecting thousands of families. I imagine that other families in other states face the same kinds of problems, something everyone should be concerned with.

*hr***

*John is mandated by the state to pay $415 a month in child support, but has, for about a year, paid $475. I pleaded for extra money to cover the kids’ asthma medications and whatnot.

**Working Family Credits are in many states in similar forms. In Oregon, it allows a family who qualifies to get up to 40% of what they paid in childcare costs back.

***Am I a glutton for punishment for contining to talk the poverty talk? I might be. But it's all I think about now, and probably will think about for the next month or so, until we're out of it.