From My Diary

Monday, January 24, 2022

As part of an inheritance, my wife collects a small check—it varies year to year, but but think “a few fast food meals”—in oil royalties. But regardless of the size, of course we still have to count it as income for tax purposes, so we get a letter every year about it for documentation, which we received today. I’ve handled the taxes for the last few years so it came to me.

Better late than never, this company (the documentation informs me) is now joining up to the Information Superhighway and letting you create an “account” on a “website” where you can then “download” the tax information each year, so that they don’t have to snail-mail it to you. At the very bottom of an entire, full page of dense, step-by-step instructions on how to do so, the very last line is:

Note: Please disregard this information if you do not have a computer or internet access.

Welcome to 1999, oil company.