Tightwad Bankers, penny wise, pound foolish

Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

That's roughly the sound that emerged from my body Saturday morning as I was preparing to wrap up my income tax work. Yes, I know, smart people claim to do this as early in the year as possible. Not me. I need the pressure of IT MUST BE DONE BY MONDAY AFTERNOON. I was going through the stack of envelopes containing relevant information that comes from others. Everything from crop insurance payments to the simple little summary of donations from our church. One extremely important envelope was missing, because it had never been delivered in the first place. That was the one from my primary bank listing each of my notes and how much interest had been paid in 2012 on each and whether it was listed as real estate or as commercial.

First came the Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Then came the memory of this happening last year for the very first time. My bank was one of several owned by a single bank company. In 2011 the switched it from being a stand alone bank to being a branch of one of the other banks they own. They then made a fortune by selling the charter to another banking company. Up until 2011, and the change over, the bank had always sent me the interest payment listing in January. Now, they will gladly provide it to you if you specifically ask for it.

I reminded the bank president yesterday that this is a bunch of %#^@**^%%#$ (as John would put it). I can understand that they probably make a lot of little loans that don't amount to much and to people who can't deduct that expense anyway. However, those of us who have significant loans are obviously in need of that information. And, since they have already provided those numbers to the IRS it would be good if the numbers we report resemble the totals they have been provided on our behalf.

The bank's excuse is that not everyone needs this data so it is cheaper for them to only provide it to those who specifically ask for it. Meanwhile, I'm thinking they could automatically provide it to all those with outstanding loans totally over a certain number of dollars as it is a virtual centainty that they will need this information, and that it agree with what has already been reported to the IRS.