It’s Just Fraud. How I learned A Very Expensive Lesson the Hard Way

Cooper Thornton
13 min readJul 10, 2024
Photo by Travis Essinger on Unsplash

I was confused. I got Form N0002402 from the North Carolina Dept. of Revenue.

NOTICE OF COLLECTION. Immediate action required to avoid collection procedures.

It had lots of bold letters, it stated that I hadn’t paid my 2023 state taxes, and that there was now a PENALTY/FEE/INTEREST in the amount of $521.46 (a full 20% of what my taxes had been!). The form was dated June 5, 2024. They were charging me 20% for 50 days of my missing taxes! At that rate of return, I’d love to invest ALL OF MY MONEY with the NCDOR!

But here’s the thing. I PAID MY TAXES. I did my return on TurboTax and was able to bring up the document which showed that my return had been accepted on April 5th! I made sure that I had more than enough money in my account to cover my state and federal taxes. I’m a very responsible adult! I had a tax return and bank statement to prove it.

When I checked my bank statement for April, I’d even seen where the payment had gone through. So, I knew that it was a simple misunderstanding. I called the toll-free number on the form, twice, and over the course of two days was on hold for just shy of two hours, before I found a better number to call. I left a message explaining that I’d gotten this form, and could they please call me back so that we could…

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Cooper Thornton

Parent, Actor, People Lover, Observer, Writer and Most Often Happy Depressive in NC by way of LA by way of UK by way of BC by way of TN, where it all started.