This is what Oregon is coming to. <br /><br />From our local dead-fish wrapper:<br /><br />12-5-03<br /><br />Marine calls tax tussle out of bounds<br /><br />Mail Tribune<br /><br />When the April 15 tax deadline arrived this year, filing a tax return was the last thing on the mind of Marine Corps reservist Sean L. Bell of Medford.<br /><br />The sergeant was in war-torn Baghdad, focusing on his mission and survival with other members of the Eugene-based Delta Company, 7th Engineers Battalion.<br /><br />Life had been hectic for months: Activated Jan. 14, his unit departed Oregon on Jan. 23 for Camp Pendleton, Calif., arrived in Kuwait on Feb. 9, then rolled into Iraq when the war began March 20.<br /><br />Its mission accomplished, his unit left Iraq for Kuwait at the end of May, returning stateside at the end of June. The unit was deactivated July 25.<br /><br />Upon his return, Bell paid his state taxes late, sending in the $245 he owed for 2002.<br /><br />But he received a late payment bill of $24.50, representing 10 percent of his original bill.<br /><br />Bell, 34, an Oregon State University graduate majoring in business, called the revenue department to say why his payment was late.<br /><br />"The explanation I got was that it was standard policy to charge a late payment penalty, that nothing could be done about it," he said.<br /><br />"I dont care about the money," he added. "It just isnt right that me and other Oregonians in the service are being made to pay penalties for something that is beyond our control."<br /><br />Concerned that other Oregonians in the military would face the same tax fate, Bell fired off a letter to the department, sending copies to state and federal legislators as well as the Mail Tribune.<br /><br />"With great indignation, I must register my protest of this unfair treatment of myself and my fellow military veterans that are snared in this shabby effort to penalize us for wartime service," he wrote.<br /><br />"There was absolutely no way in which I could have completed a tax return while deployed and living out of a seabag from January to well beyond April 15," he continued. " ... To penalize those of us in this situation amounts to a tax on our service to our country."<br /><br />Calling the bill reprehensible, he noted it represented a higher tax rate than for Oregonians who didnt serve overseas in the military during that period.<br /><br />"Your department should be ashamed of this policy," he wrote.<br /><br />But Debra Buchanan, the departments legislative coordinator, says its not the agencys policy to penalize those who serve in combat zones for paying their taxes late.<br /><br />Like the federal IRS, the state revenue department has provisions to waive the late penalty for those who serve in combat zones, she said.<br /><br />"It sure sounds like he would meet those provisions," she said Thursday afternoon. "Apparently he talked to someone who didnt know it exists.<br /><br />"We will do a follow-up with Mr. Bell and do some communications in-house," she added. "We dont want to make it any more difficult for people in uniform."<br /><br />Any interest or penalty that was charged incorrectly will be rectified, she said.<br /><br />H.
