Red Tape Hot Box the distance created by bureaucracy

Red Tape creates obstacles, often when you least expect them. As one of our readers learned, just when you think that all your problems have been resolved, new ones arise.

After submitting his company's income tax return, our reader realized that he had made a mistake and promptly put out a correction letter. This is standard procedure, and so our reader was taken aback when he later received a letter from the tax office highlighting his error. The office informed him that the amount mentioned in the return didn't correspond to the sum in their bank account and, consequently, his company account was blocked.

He rushed to the tax office to explain this obvious misunderstanding and appeal against the inconvenient outcome. It transpired that they had indeed received his korekta, no less that two months prior to our reader's panicked visit. Unfortunately, it was filed away in another department and hadn't been entered into their computer system, so the clerks dealing with our reader's forms didn't know that the correction letter even existed. Although our reader found their excuses hard to swallow, he was glad that his problems were over.

Seven days later, the company's bank account was finally unblocked - this is how long it took for a document to travel from one department of the tax office to another. These departments, it should be noted, are located in buildings across the street from each other. But since when did bureaucracy take distance into account?

Fortunately for our reader, the company didn't lose any potential clients or contracts during that week. But if things had gone another way, they could have lost thousands of złotych. Perhaps if the tax office lost a humiliating and lengthy court case, then these ridiculous procedures would be simplified. Let's just hope that they don't send out notice of any changes by the inter-departmental mail system.