Businesses-Welcome to New York!

We got a letter yesterday from the New York State Department of Labor. Translated into normal English, it says:

“To help serve New York Businesses better, we’ve been updating our databases. During this process, we discovered that for one week in 2003, Garreson Lumber Company did not have a required insurance policy. Normally, we’d fine you $500 unless you had proof you weren’t required to have insurance. However, since we’re only getting to this now, we’ll let you off for $250. You have 30 days to appeal or pay, or we squash you like a bug.”

This reads like a scam, since larger budget businesses would probably rather pay $250 than spend hours digging through old records and trying to figure out what kind of proof the government wants. There was no week when Garreson Lumber didn’t have the required insurance, but with the business climate in New York, you never know when you’ll get stung by one of thousands of laws that you might not know of. This is the 3^rd or 4^th threatening letter we’ve gotten in 20 years from the State that has arrived out of nowhere. In each case you either pay a small fine or spend hours of letter writing and phone calls with rude state employees resolving the issue.

New York State considers all its businesses to be potential felons and treats us accordingly.