Detroit Treats Veterans with Disrespect

Do you want to know why the City of Detroit needs an emergency manager? All the broad and general points have been made and debated furiously. Perhaps a single example of a single person might demonstrate the point. Detroit needs an emergency manger because it is so terribly disorganized that the city doesn't even know its own rules.

A veteran who served his country for all of 2007, 2008, and 2009, who was otherwise a lifelong citizen of Detroit, and proud of his citizenship while so very many people who professed belief in Detroit skipped town (and yet somehow feel the right to defend it against the EM), received a letter asking for his Detroit Income Tax payments for 2007 and, interestingly, 2009. The letter explained that the city was trying very hard to maintain fiscal solvency and that it would help if he would pay his taxes. And, you may ask, what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't everyone, even soldiers, pay their fair share?

Although paying their fair share is an important question for anyone, one wonders why such inquiries aren't answered well enough by the statement: because he was serving his country (and, by extension, his hometown) while earning his pay in 2007 and 2009? Might that be enough of a fair share? Yet even such issues are made worse by other salient facts, not the least of which is that Detroit's own income tax regulations exempt the pay of those in the military on active duty from paying the city income tax. It's all there on the city's own Frequently Asked Questions section of their website dealing with the city income tax: http://www.detroitmi.gov/DepartmentsandAgencies/Finance/IncomeTaxDivision/FAQs.aspx Just read the answer to question 11. It might help to mention that such facts are found on the instructions to Detroit Income Tax forms from 2007 and 2009 as well.

All righty then, how was the city to know that said soldier was in the active military? Well, perhaps because the letter knew what he had earned during 2007 and 2009 and thereby knew what he owed in taxes, which was supposedly about $2,000. How might Detroit know such intimacies? Perhaps from his W-2? But from where would it get the information from his W-2? Oh, yes, of course: his employer. The United States Army.

Should we even ask now why there was no demand for income taxes from 2008? Or did the City of Detroit Finance Division somehow realize that that would have been smack in the middle of this veteran's three year service period?

This is a very simple question to get right, and Detroit got it wrong. Did someone not look at his W-2s? Could they not make a phone call or two whilst trying to eliminate confusion? Could they not cross reference the city's own income tax laws and determine why our loyal veteran paid no city income tax for the years in question? Did they, whoever decided that a letter must be sent dunning this soldier for payment, even look over the pertinent documents before authorizing the letter?

Apparently not. And this is why the City of Detroit needs an emergency manager. The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, nor does it have the sense enough to check. Detroit needs an emergency manager because it is either sick or stupid. Hopefully the former; such would at least offer a better excuse for the poor treatment of one of its nation's finest.