Taxes Taxes Taxes

April 30th is fast approaching.
To me, April 30th means only one thing ... the fact that taxes have to be paid by this day, else you will get a big fat fine.
And I think it is no secret that people hate paying taxes, me, no different.

It is not like I disagree with the concept of paying taxes, I think that it is fair we get taxed some % and the government uses the money wisely so that we can all enjoy the facilities and development as a nation. But to be taxed 27%? Hmm ... maybe it is a little too much considering the silly things we have to put up with.

For example ... the IRB. They are really an inefficient bunch. 2 days ago when I went to submit my forms to the Pandan Indah branch ...first of all, upon reaching the lobby of the building, I was looking for a place to drop my forms and get an acknowledgment receipt. There were some boxes there, manned by several people, but you cannot get an acknowledgment stamp if you dropped it there ... you have to go upstairs to get it stamped. Hmm ... one would have thought that the stamp would have been a mighty big stamp full of complex mechanisms and obviously expensive cause people are not willing to bring it downstairs .... but no, it was just a small normal stamps that we usually use. So why can't the people manning the boxes downstairs have this???

Secondly, when we were told to go up the building, you would have thought that being the department who collects so much of money, the lift services would at least have been decent. But, are you in for a surprise! There were only 3 lifts on the lobby, servicing the 20+ floors ... and each lift can only hold 17 people!!!! and it was damn slow. Can you imagine waiting for the lift for a good 10 minutes? And every time the lift came, people will be rushing to it, crowding the entrance until the people inside cannot come out. Even the pregnant lady was not given a chance, she also had to squeeze for her chance to go into the lift!!

That was going up the building ... when I was going down, I witnessed something really hilarious ... that it was almost embarrassing. The lifts took a lifetime to come as usual. Then, when it came, people rushed into the lift. Then the lift beeped ... overloaded .... and cannot close the doors. What do you think people would do? Step out right? But because lifts were difficult to come by, NOBODY got out! So, everyone was in the lift and the doors kept opening and closing and then the BRILLIANT security guard came. He attempted to close the door by forcing the doors to close! Can you imagine this? We usually force the doors to open, which was still within logic and capability, but to force it to close?? Hello! Where is the common sense man? Then finally, someone sensible decided to get out ... lo and behold, the doors closed.

While I was in IRB, I was approached by an officer there who gave me a waiting ticket. He seemed overly eager to hand out tickets cause he did not seemed to hear what I wanted. You see, for the first time in 9 years, I overpaid taxes, so I wanted a refund and I asked if there was a counter I can go to to fill forms, whatever. Then he said "Aiya, kenapa tak cakap?" Grrr ... I did you stupid punk, you just did not listen!!

And so, I went to the counter and told the girl of my wanting to get a refund order in place...then she stared at me "Kita di sini cuma terima form sahaja, cik perlu pergi ke cawangan cik untuk buat tuntutan refund" .... arghh!!! stupid stupid, how can you have so many counters doing only one thing? And I remembered last year, I paid my additional taxes here at the counter, so why can't I do that this year? So the lady said "Tak ada, sini cuma untuk terima form sahaja" ... stupid stupid.

Then I said, can I fax in the form instead? She said "Boleh cubalah". So I asked for the fax number to Wangsa Maju's branch .... "Hmm....nanti duluah say tanya pegawai" Hello? Don't they have a list of phone numbers that all of them silly people can go check with? Well, apparently no. Then another lady came to me and said "Apa hal?" So I explained and then she went away and then another lady came and asked "Apa hal?" Can you imagine I repeated myself 3 times just to get a bloody fax number?? Aiyo, then finally got it. But they say "Tak tau ada orang nampak fax you, lebih baik pergi sana sendiri" ... *Pengsan*

Nett nett, I am not sure why the government makes it so unfriendly to us tax payers when we want to pay taxes. I was actually thinking of going there to register for e-filing, but guess what? I have to go 6 floors higher to do that. Then I imagined the lifts condition ... hmm maybe not.
Why can't the government pick somewhere sensible for the tax offices to be located and have all the relevant facilities put up front so that people do not need to go and queue for lifts, numbers, counters with singular functions, then to be told that they have to go back to their relevant branches to put in a request to pay additional taxes/ to ask for a refund of excess payments etc.

Relevant parties should recognize that we are doing our civic duties to pay those exorbitant taxes and it is their responsibilities to minimize our pain in doing so. At least make the experience pleasant ler so we don't feel the pinch so much.

Buck up "Malaysia Boleh"!!

Happy happy

Today I am very happy for several reasons.

For one, I managed to finally buy my car!! Yeah!!
Signed the papers yesterday when the sales woman came by the office.
Paid the booking fee and was told that I will get the car end next month. Yahoo!!!
Fingers crossed on whether that will actually happened or not. Otherwise, it will be early June.
Either way, I have ended this search and the debate with hubby is finally over. We are both happy.
Now, having to start paying car installments all over again is a little upsetting though, but still I have a new car!!!

Oh, I bought the 2l Civic in silver. Apparently it is a over powered car, so I will really like the rush driving it.

Secondly, my new phone came today to the office. Yipee!!!
Maxis has been having this promotion with my company and we have 2 packages that we can take.
I took the 125 package, which means I commit to pay RM125 + 5% tax every month. If I use more than RM125, then I will have to pay more. Although it sounds a lot, it really is not. My current bill is about RM70 talk time and RM35 access fee. So the total is about RM105. Now, with RM20 extra, I actually do talk RM125 worth instead of the previous RM70 as I now do not have to pay the access fees. On top of that, I get to buy specific Nokia phones at a cheaper rate. So I got myself a N73. It is not really a sexy phone, but am happy with it nevertheless. Still figuring it out now, but I think my phone is really due for replacement already having using it for so long.

Thirdly, if you have read my previous entries, you will know that I have been complaining that I do not have a car park and how that bothers me.
Well, today I managed to secure a parking space in a nearby hotel for a cost of RM105 only!!! That works out to be approximately RM5 a day versus RM7 I am paying now. Plus, this space is covered, so my new car will be happy to be away from the sun. You have no idea how difficult it is to get these spaces, and I cannot believe my luck when I accidentally stumbled upon it through a colleague. I will start using it tomorrow.

Fourthly, my bro was in Singapore today and I asked that he gets me one of those Ipods ... and he got it for me!!! Ok, I still have to pay la, but still, I have one!!! Lately, I have been smitten by the gadgets bug, so I am really excited about all these gadgets I have. Will be going to his office tomorrow morning to get it. Really happy ... now if only I can convince him to pay for me, that would have been awesome!!

Lastly, one of my counters performed well in the stock exchange, making me smile really widely at 5pm when the market closed.
Looking forward to tomorrow when the market opens again. Hope the support is still intact then.

So happy now, I cannot sleep wor. Silly me.

My car

I really hate it when I do not have my car. Really really hate it.

Last week my car was under major repairs (according to my standards) and as a result, I did not have my car for the entire week! I was really annoyed as I spent a lot of time on the public transport and much more time waiting for the bloody things to come!

I also had to arrange to have some of my friends send me home. By the time I got home, it was close to 10pm and after bathing, it was time to put Ryan down to sleep. I hardly had anytime to unwind!!!

Luckily on Friday last week, I got my car back. Not 100% "cured" but sufficiently so.

Which brings me to thinking that I am really going to get a new car now. We have spent hours debating on this subject and we finally decided that we will change.

The question is - Is that car we decided THE car and WHAT A LOAD OF MONEY GOING OUT MAN!!!

So, if all goes well, I will sign the papers within the week. Keep you updated on it then.

The Potty

Ok, I must admit, I am one of those mums who is just contented to have her kids running around in diapers/ nappies until one fine day, the kids themselves will say "I don't want it!!!"

Therefore, I have never been the one who is anal about having Ryan wee wee in the potty nor the one who will make a big fuss when he poops in his diapers. I have had many mothers who came up to me and gave me "friendly" advice on how to toilet train Ryan. Info from books and magazines are also aplenty. But I never really cared much about it.

Recently, about 2 weeks back, Ryan has been coming home from nanny's with a bare back ... i.e. no diapers. I was a little worried that he will start peeing in my car, but that only happened like once. So in the past 2 weeks, Ryan has managed to hold his wee wee well and he has been able to reach the potty in good time ... most of the time.

Over the weekend, I tried having him in the house without his nappies, it was really good. Not only can he hold his wee wee, he is also able to reach the potty in time AND pull down his pants and hold the potty himself to wee wee. I am so proud of his achievement. He is even able to hold his shirt under his chin while he is at it.

I am looking forward to the day when he does not require nappies when he sleeps at night.
Hmmm .... wonder if the nanny will help in that area as well.

Kudos to the nanny.

To yoga - finally!!

I must admit that I am one of the laziest person on earth, I am - exercise wise that is!
I joined the gym last year and managed to burnt my money away as I did not even bother to attend the classes much nor go for any sort of exercise.
The few times I went there, I did not stay for more than an hour, so it is safe to say that the money was indeed "well spent".

This year, I have decided to discontinue my gym membership and was wondering if I should join the yoga classes in the company.

After 3 months of debating, I am proud to say that I will be starting my first yoga class this Friday.
And I will be joining it with my colleagues who have been bugging me about it.

Now, let's hope that this will pull through and at least sustain it for a quarter, yeah I know, I am such a hopeless person - exercise that is!

Mummy sorry

Just now when I was dressing Ryan for bed, I got annoyed with him as he was actively trying to duck me from changing him.

I gave him a soft slap on his buttocks to calm him down. He paused immediately and stared at me.

Then he said "mummy sorry, mummy sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry" ... "mummy shake hands"

Aiyo, how to stay annoyed when he says these things??

Anyway, this is another episode of how my little darling is growing up.
Sleep tight dear.