Apparently, M.C. Hammer has gone bankrupt, 25 years after his earworm hit single 'U Can't Touch This' made the world a little bit cooler. These days, he is working as a loan shark, stealing crypto from small fry. There's so many doors he could knock on but - one way or another - he decided to slammer his Hammer down on mine, today.
I didn't see that one coming and it annoyed me.
All kidding aside, I have a creative mind, as you might know. I have no clue whether M.C. Hammer is bankrupt or not or still very rich. Is he even alive?
Today I received an email from a debt collection agency, concerning some unjust debt that I thought had been dealt with by now. It annoyed me, as they asked me to reach out by phone and I didn't feel like it. I am not a phone call type and these kind of phone calls are the worst.
Knowing that the frustration and uncertainty ( about what they wanted from me ) would grow stronger if I'd postpone the issue, I decided to make some tea and ring them anyway, in order to deal with it asap.
I don't want to go too much into detail, but all this has to do with student loan debts ( from a decade and a half - and longer - ago ). I decided to take on this loan, in the last 3 years of University, as I needed more time than the required 4 years and didn't receive any money from my parents or the government any longer. It was very easy and convenient back then. Too easy, looking back on it.
For your information, I was probably depressed back then and I didn't feel able to work a job next to my graduation thesis struggle. I also wanted to have some fun, whenever I felt up for it, so some extra money was welcome.
I graduated in 2007. Due to having been fairly poor since my graduation ( I was a struggling creative with a pretty worthless degree in Film theory / film studies and tended to lose or quit jobs, over and over again ), I have hardly paid off my debt up till now. In fact, if I stay 'poor' or under the radar for another 4 years or so, I won't need to pay back any of it, the remaining debt will be waived.
How sweet would that be? :<)
Of course I aim for the latter. But - being in crypto for 4 years now - and expecting another strong run in this bull market, there is a chance that I have to pay off my debt, after all. That is, if they do find a way to touch my crypto money and start seeing it as income.
Back to today's email and call. Let's conclude that this particular bill / fine was injust. The reason it ended up on my digital door mat wasn't my fault. This debt, about two month's rent worth, here in Portugal, was the effect of a huge administration backlog at the Dutch Tax Office. They had requested info around my ( lack of ) income over 2019 and I had provided that to them, months ago. This had never been processed, apparently, even though I thought it had.
As per usual ( definitely not the first time ), they had decided that I had made a decent amount of money in 2019 ( probably still based on the job that I quit in 2016 ), while, in fact, my only money that year was from crypto ( no tax on this where I live ) and money that I inherited and invested in the renovation of the little house that I have bought in Portugal late 2018.
In the end, I think it has all been dealt with, finally. I actually even had paid a small 32 Euro fine, a week and a half ago, to just be done with it. I was tired of more phone calls.
There's a saying that you can't pluck a bald chicken. I am not a chicken thoug, I am a raptor and I'm far from bald ( pretty hairy actually ).
Nevertheless, the stuff they want to pluck isn't theirs. They have to stay away from my nest egg, I mean hard earned crypto cois.
That is probably what annoys me the most. I worked very hard, to grow my crypto portfolio over the years. I am officially a Portuguese citizen since January the 5th of 2019, I receive nothing at all from the Dutch government and have never even received any kind of allowance from them, no matter how hard I struggled.
Perhaps it was a little foolish from me to take on these student loans but hey, I was in my early to mid twenties and everybody seemed to do it. How could I know how much of a struggle my post University life would be? How could I know the economy would crash a year after my graduation? I couldn't.
It wasn't my choice to stay poor for so long. It was far from easy.
It took me a decade, after my graduation, to find crypto and, by then, I was burnt out and depressed. I then managed to change my life around and change country.
I am doing pretty well these days. I now have a little house for sale, here in Portugal. Aside from that, I am all-in in crypto. I have a decent amount of coins and keep finding new ways to grow my portfolio, in order to live and get more abundant and help more people by spreading my abundance and knowledge of crypto, among other things, as I have done for my twin sister and her family.
It feels so unfair that governments and big companies keep trying to pluck ( not so bald ) chickens like me. They should just leave me alone and focus on the big guys instead. That is where the real money is.
Seriously? What do I have, aside from a Dutch passport and the Dutch nationality? I am not even allowed to travel, if I don't test myself for the virus. So my passport isn't worth much either these days, which segways perfectly into another thing that really bothers me, and that I wrote about yesterday in Tired of Butting Heads- A Healthy Debate between Two Brothers in Times of Increasing Division. Lack of freedom and being put under pressure ( even by my own family ) is tough to deal with.
And to get back to the government and these huge money collecting companies:
Why are they still trying to get into my wallet?
The money isn't theirs and I will guard it with all my might, whenever I can. They might be sharks but I am a raptor and, as long as I don't file my nails ( I wrote about that in No More Football for Hypersensitivosaurus), it will be a hell of a job for them to get close to my crypto bags, let along take from them.
I hope you enjoy the art that my frustration has led to. I was actually planning to mainly show my creation and not write much but I just had to rant about this, as it feels so unjust, in my sensitive eyes and gut and I'm sure many of you can relate to it, one way or another. So I ended up ranting first and then creating the raptor - shark battle.
I'm curious to hear about your struggle with tax offices, debt collectors and your government. Have you got advice on how to deal with them or interesting stories to share or do you just want to get something off your chest? Feel free to share it in a comment.
Even if I say so myself, I ended up making some pretty cool art, just now. I think I might actually sell this as a NFT. Just not sure yet whether I will post it on NFT Showroom or if I will perhaps, finally, give Opensea a try. Will sleep on this.