It's frustrating to be treated like a Snidely Whiplash cartoon villain over a mistake. But it's hard to distinguish willfully bad actions from mistakes, and the fact is that most people engage in at least some degree of willfully bad behavior: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/how-common-is-t... ("Various estimates put the tax cheat rate at 80 to 95 percent of people who employ baby sitters, housekeepers and home health aides.") Enforcement keeps people civilized, and when enforcement is lax, the culture decays and civilization crumbles (see, e.g., Greece; almost any third-world country).

I agree - it's hard to distinguish some willfully bad actions from mistakes. I don't think missing a single day's worth of worker's comp insurance in the middle of a state-to-state office move qualifies as one of those hard-to-distinguish-from-willfully-bad-actions, though.

I've had a similar cartoonish experience talking with folks from the NY State Tax Department (specifically unemployment insurance & worker's comp). Brief backstory was I had a production company and we paid everyone as independent contractors and got caught.

The cartoonish aspect of this was actually negotiating the fine with them over the phone. I thought there would be a set fine or something, instead we spent about 20 minutes haggling about what I would have to pay.

If the information you provided them was accurate, shouldn't the folks that botched the payroll be liable for that?

Why does something like that takes months to resolve? Shouldn't these systems be in place to be more efficient? :\