Diary of Schaefer Intern, Geoff Sanzenbacher

         June 11, 2004 ~ Baltimore 

Today was the last day of my first week at my internship in the Comptroller’s Office in Baltimore. I have been amazed by the generosity with which I was received and the level of tasks with which I was entrusted.  Upon arriving to the office on Tuesday I had a meeting with my supervisor. We also discussed my goals for the internship. These goals ranged from gaining workplace experience to better understanding how the executive branch and legislative branch interact on the state level.

Later on Tuesday Later on Tuesday I was led around the State I was led around the State Office Building on West Preston Street being introduced to all the supervisors and directors of the various programs that take place in the Baltimore branch of the Comptroller’s Office. Then I was introduced to the supervisor of the Individual Nexus wing of the Compliance Division, Darlene Kidd. She then assigned me to work with Terry Erickson on a legislative audit of the office.  

My first assignment will be to research individuals who have been notified by the Comptroller’s Office that they have not filed tax returns for 2001 and 2002. I will use SMART, a database of taxpayer information to see if these individuals have responded to the letters. If they have I report who much they paid, how much they owe, or how much they received in refunds. This information will be reviewed by the director of the Compliance Division. After one week it is clear that may stay in the Comptroller’s Office will be a busy, enjoyable experience.

June 18, 2004 ~ Baltimore

It’s my second week at the Comptroller’s Office I am still enjoying my work. After a week of work I am getting close to finishing my research on the W-2 Project I described in last week’s entry. Next week I will compile the information I have gathered in a report that will describe how many people have responded and what kind of revenue has been gathered by the project. I am also told that I will soon begin the process of assessing those who have not responded with the appropriate level of tax. This will not be an easy process, as the lack of returns from these individuals makes in a research intensive process to figure out their incomes.

This week I have also worked with Lee Whitehead in the Business Nexus Unit. She assigns me to do research on individuals who claimed over ten exemptions on their Maryland 507 Form. This is work makes me realize how many people file their taxes incorrectly. This week I sent out many letters to taxpayers informing them that they need to take fewer exemptions.

 As the week comes to a close I am glad to have a few days to recover from the early morning metro rides that have worn me down when compared to my 10:00 wake up times in college. However, I am looking forward to next week, when I can turn my days of research into a tangible report that will hopefully be used to evaluate the success of the W-2 Project so far.

June 25, 2004 ~ Baltimore

           This week I completed my first Memorandum on the work I have been doing at the Comptroller’s Office. The Memo was a report on the progress made regarding a project designed to get individuals who had not filed their tax returns for the years 2001 and 2002 to file their returns and balance their accounts with the state. The memo included the number of individuals who had filed their returns since the project began, the amount of money collected and refunded, the amount of money for which taxpayers were still liable, and the number of people who still had yet to respond.

Working on this project has shown me just how much work goes on behind the scenes of state government. Often times, the focus of the citizenry falls on the legislature and the elected officials of the executive branch. However, little attention is paid to the gears that must shift into motion after the press conference announcing a new law or initiative occurs. For example, the project I am currently working on was suggested by a legislative audit of the Comptroller’s Office. This suggestion, to get non-filers for 2001 and 2002 into compliance with the law, must have sounded fairly simple at the time. However, after weeks of communication with taxpayers, documentation of taxpayer responses, and complex decisions on how to effectively administer the project without causing problems with the State’s tax data base we are only ten percent through the project.

It is likely that a project that started weeks before I arrived will also continue months after I leave. Thus, I have learned a valuable lesson about government. While the focus of the media and our educational system is on those that create and approve our laws, the responsibility of government falls largely on those state employees who painstakingly research each project, enforce each law, and deal with the intricacies that arise when the press conference ends and the legislature heads home.   

July 2, 2004

This week I have been working on tasks that my mentor refers to as “the nuts and bolts” of public service. This is because the tasks I am performing are important while still being routine. For example, I have spent much of this week researching the 2003 tax returns and other available information of individuals who filed exempt for this year to make sure the exemption should be allowed. To determine if the exemption should be allowed I first check to see if they filed a return for 2003, and if so whether or not they were exempt. If they were exempt then I allow the exemption for 2004 and if they were not I do not allow the exemption. If no return was filed I check their earning records for the first quarter of this year and if the number is below $2000 I allow the exemption. Finally, if none of this information is available I check the MVA records to see the individual’s age. If they are of the age where it is likely they are a full time student I will allow the exemption. While this work can become repetitive it is the kind of work that needs to be done to make sure taxpayers to not end up with big bills at the end of the year for filing exempt from withholding incorrectly. 

This activity makes sure that the State of Maryland gets a constant stream of revenue from withholding taxes instead of a flood of revenue at the end of the year as it struggles to track down individuals who should have been paying taxes all along but filed exempt. This activity reinforces some of the topics I discussed in last week's entry. Without the hard work of state employees the revenue needed to fund the programs and balance the budget would not be available to the state in a timely manner. So next time you hear that state revenue has exceeded expectations by millions of dollars think not of the politician beaming with pride, but of the state employees who made that statistic possible. 

July 9 ,2004

            This week I witnessed the customer service side of the Comptroller’s Office. On Wednesday I attended a hearing for an individual who had failed to file a tax return in 1998. A hearing in the comptroller’s office is a fairly informal meeting in which the taxpayer and an attorney form the office meet and discuss the reasons and ramifications of any number of tax related issues. The hearing is tape-recorded and once the attorney has reached a decision the taxpayer is given 30 days to appeal the decision to a more formal court. At this hearing the individual claimed that she had asked the Comptroller’s Office whether or not she needed to file a 1998 return and had been told that her low earnings (she was a student) exempted her from paying. In actuality, she had earned enough to have to pay taxes and had therefore been misinformed. In light of this information the appeals officer decided that the young woman would not need to pay the penalty on the late tax and reduced the interest payment. Thus, the young woman only had to pay the tax she would have owed in 1998. This seemed like a very fair process to me with all parties leaving happily.

           I have heard not all hearings are so smooth. One interesting hearing involved an individual who ran a strip club but claimed he shouldn’t have to pay amusement tax because people came to his establishment to eat food. Today I learned that not all the work done by state employees is paperwork and that sometimes strip clubs and taxes share a common thread. Who ever said tax law was boring?

August 14^th, 2004

          This was the last week of my internship. In the last few weeks of my time at the Comptroller’s Office I continued doing many of the same tasks I have spoken of in this journal. However, outside of the office I worked with four other interns on a policy paper to be presented to Governor Ehrlich. The topic of the paper was reducing juvenile recidivism rates in Maryland. Yesterday, we turned a finished paper into the Governor’s Office, and we were able to present our findings to the Governor in Annapolis. The presentation was a four minute summary of our paper which included a number of suggestions for future juvenile justice reforms. These suggestions included changing the residential systems Maryland’s juvenile offenders are housed in, increasing mental health screening, and improving after care for juveniles released from the Department of Juvenile Services.

          Over the last ten weeks I have learned a lot about government. First and foremost, I now appreciate the amount of work that goes into running the executive branch of government. Secondly, I learned how difficult it is to develop effective government policy. There a variety of issues that must be considered. These include the political feasibility of the suggested policy, the cost of the policy, and the possible consequences of the policy. After completing the internship I can definitely say that I have a new appreciation and understanding for our state government.