(I am reposting this message because there is some
        indication it never went out due to Fidonet changes
        at the end of the year.)
 -=> Quoting Joe Nicholson to Wes Leatherock <=-
 WL> There was an attempt a year or so ago to adopt federal legislation
 WL> to this effect.  It failed because of the intolerable burden it
 WL> would place on companies
 JN> WHAT burden?  It works for the IRS tax deadline in April.  And
 JN> the IRS handles millions, not thousands, of tax returns.
 
 WL> What state has such a law?  While generally I am in favor of
 WL> anything protecting the consumer, this makes such an onerous
 WL> demand on the creditor that it appears unreasonable.
  
 JN> WHAT demand?  Postmark dates work for the Department of Motor
 JN> Vehicles in California, and it handles thousands and thousand
 JN> of vehicle renewals every day.
        The governmental agencies you are describing have a lot
more to do with the material sent to them than simply recording
the payment.
        You must never have watched a remittance operation in
effect.  The checks and stubs go by so fast you find it difficult
at first to believe humans can handle them so rapidly.  (Yes, humans
have to see the amount of the check to know how much to credit,
usually one of two different amounts encoded on the stub, but
the check may not match either one.)
        The envelope is not examined at all, except to ensure
that all the contents have been removed.
        You may suggest that only the envelopes would need to
be examined where the payment did not arrive on time.  But
the envelope is long gone before the payment is posted.
        The alternative would be to examine *every* envelope
and compare the postmark, often not readable or readable only
with difficulty, with the due date on the bill.
        The IRS in the last few years has been contracting
with banks to handle many of their remittance operations.
        Indeed, in 1997 for the first time, at least in our
area, your tax return went directly to the bank, with your
check and--for the first time--a remittance coupon enclosed.
Instead of attaching your check to the return, you were
instructed to put both the check (or money order) and the
remittance coupon in loose with the tax return.
        Obviously, this is so the bank can pull out the
check and the remittance coupon and run them through a regular
high speed remittance operation, thus getting the funds in
the hands of the U.S. Treasury earlier and at less cost, and
sending the rest of the return on to the IRS.
--- Blue Wave/Max v2.20 [NR]
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