here's the story- buying a new house, applied for the mortgage. got the call from the bank that i had a conditional approval, need this paperwork, etc, etc. one small issue, something with my credit history. now i'm a credit freak, check it often, etc. i have perfect, great credit, there must be a mistake. lady explains that it shows two tax liens against me from the state of california. i'm a bit shocked, but she sends over the documents.<br /><br />i call california and after a few handoffs, get the story- i was stationed in san diego from 99-01. california would normally not have known i even existed- i rented an apartment, earned no income outside the military, kept my nj residence status, cars & license still registered to nj. but.... i took the engineer-in-training exam in 00. it's a state administered exam and considered an occupational license. guess what california does? when they get the list of those who passed the exam, they forward to their tax office. they assume if you took an occupational exam in california, you must be working and earning money there. they see my name and find i paid no taxes to them. but wait, they don't have any proof of income. that doesn't stop them, they figure out the avg salary of an engineer in the state and assess taxes based on that. i couldn't believe it, it sounded almost illegal.<br /><br />as i struggled to find past tax info and/or documentation that i was stationed in california by the navy, i decided to make another call to the tax office. thankfully, i got a cool girl on the line and explained everything again to her. it surprised me to death to be put on hold for 15 minutes, but have her come back and say she cleared everything up. now i just have to watch my credit reports for the next 6 months and ensure it really gets cleared.
