2020 USA census

They aren't "culling" anything.
Overall, it is easier, quicker and maybe even less expensive just to blast out the reminders to everyone on the list.

 

Yeah, I can't figure that out either. My residence received a letter with a code, no packet. I filled out online. Then my father in law received a full packet in the mail. I filled out on line for him. I have a future retirement home out of state. No mail, a full packet was left on the door. I tried to fill out on line, but after clicking on seasonal home, it demanded my main residence, which was already entered. I'm not sure the seasonal entry got recorded due to the demand for my main residence.

 

Just received a card, telling me to either fill out the form or go online, under penalty of law, if I haven't already.

 

I am sure. It did NOT.
I had the same problem.
You must either fill out the paper form or call them and insist that you need to answer the questions over the phone.

But doing either one of those things will NOT prevent you from getting ALL of the subsequent mailings.
Hopefully it will prevent a real person knocking on the door.

 

So I called the number. 55 minutes later and it's all worked out.

Started with about 20 minutes on hold. I think the first lady I talked to was a rookie on her first call. after she took all the info, including getting confused on which house was which, her screen "went blank" and there was nothing further she could do. She transferred me to someone else, and after going through the entire deal again, I am now officially counted and the extra house is verified to be uninhabited on April 1.

I highly recommend the online or mail versions if you can. Talking to them is the worst.

 

YMMV.
On my first call, I got an entirely WRONG answer.
After carefully reading the printed material, I insisted on a "phone count" the second time and it took all of maybe 5 minutes.

 

Just an update...

 

I musta filled out the Census form 100 times already....

My town is growing by leaps and bounds!!

 

For your family, did this uncertainty get resolved, and everyone reported? Or reportable, if you haven't yet done it?

 

That was in fact a hypothetical case, but surely not a very rare one.

 

You have little fear of dealing with humans in the "don'T rump" gov't. Humans have largely been fired & forced out of fed gov't & replaced with "don'T rump" auto-bots, who have no socially redeeming qualities. "don'T rump" has made inhumanity the calling card for gov't processes, second only to the chinese communists (always small letters).

 

But under the current system, it was an easily handled case.

 

Glad to read that priuschat is a den of thieves. I feel right at home.

 

In college, I took a personal finance class where the instructor stressed "It is not illegal to avoid Income Taxes, it is only illegal to evade Income Taxes"

I try to avoid paying for gasoline, I do not steal gasoline.

 

My late father-in-law was very highly insistent on avoiding income and property taxes, and was very proficient at doing so.

His most powerful method: avoid income in the first place. E.g. by keeping $150k of cash in the form of non-interest-bearing cashier's checks, rather than CD deposits, he was avoiding over $7000/year in reported taxable income! (interest rates were only just starting to fall below 5%.) Not only did this save on federal and state income taxes, it also qualified him for the low income senior citizen property tax discount, saving at least another $300/year in local tax!

We were putting him into care, no longer competent to take care of his own affairs, so I put him on another financial path and significantly boosted his taxable income. But from there, he never actually reached the filing threshold.

 

That part of his strategy is ...mmmmm....short sighted.
By forgoing $7K of income, he "saved" maybe $1500 in taxes.......for a net LOSS of $5500.
But it is surprising how many people don't understand that simple math and get blinded by "avoiding taxes".

 

He was starting well below the filing threshold, so the first portion of that would be in the 0% bracket. Then a portion would have landed up in the 10% bracket. Max federal tax bill would have been a couple hundred dollars, state income tax much less.

At least the bank was benefiting from a good-sized interest-free loan.

 

I basically received two of the same to "Resident". I opened both and they had the same code to enter online.

 

I have trouble sleeping -- a lot -- pain from an auto accident will do that.

But, the plus side is I see all sorts of things online or over-the-air that intrigue me....like how the response rate to the census at the moment is only around 60 percent.

With everyone having nothing else to do....I would have thought it would be a bit higher. I did ours the day we got it. But, then, my parents taught me to do "the right thing."

Of course, the rates seem in line with historical averages, which surprised me. I would have thought it would have been much higher.

You can check your area here:
Response Rates | 2020 Census

 

Considering that a substantial block of people won't fill out anything themselves, but will answer only to the prompting of census workers coming to the door, I'm surprised it is about normal when those census takers are not currently doing that.