[323] in libertarians
Getting Back at the Paper Pushers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Mon Oct 24 16:35:03 1994
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 94 16:30:29 -0400
From: vimrich@flying-cloud.mit.edu (Vernon Imrich)
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Subj: From the Wall Street Journal
Mr. M.J. Whitson
California State University
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
Attn: Charleen Wood, Procurement and Support Services Officer
We have your eight page PO No. 940809 for one copy of our book "The
Politics of Information Management." We are unable to fill your $49
order for the following reasons:
-- In the Purchase Order Terms and Conditions you wish us to waive
any infringement of our copyrighted materials by officers, agents and
employees of the California State University. We cannot agree to make
available a valuable Copyright for the price of a book.
-- You will withhold all payments or make a 38% withholding in
order to file a year-end 1099 form. We are unable to handle the
paperwork of a separate 1099 for every book we sell. That would double
our paperwork.
-- You are requiring us to fill a Vendor Data Record (form 204)
which is largely identical with your Vendor Information Sheet form.
Filling both forms takes excessive amounts of time.
-- We are a small business, and therefore you require that we
submit a copy of the OSMB Small Business Certification. We do not have
an OSMB Certification and do not know where to get one.
-- Your attachment to form 204 specifies that I obtain a
determination with regard to my being classified either as resident or
non-resident subject to California tax withholdings, to be reclaimed by
filing at year-end California tax returns. We do not plan to make any
tax filings in California.
-- Your contract rider contains a Privacy Statement on unspecified
disclosures that makes us liable for penalties of up to $20,000.
-- As a condition of our filling out the order you are asking us to
post statements notifying all employees of compliance with Code Section
8355 and certifying as to our adopting a four point Drug-Free Awareness
program that complies with California law. Deviations are punishable as
perjury under the laws of the State of California. Please note that our
firm has only two employees, who do not take even an aspirin.
-- Your Minority/Women Business Enterprise Self Certification Form
962 requires detailed statistics on ethnic characteristics of our firm,
defining each ethnic group according to their stated geographic
origins. To assist in making such distinctions you provide a check-list
of ethnic identity of the owners of this firm, leaving us by default
with only one open choice, Caucasian, which you do not define. My
husband and I do not know of any ancestors who may have ever been in
the proximity of the Caucasian mountains, and therefore we are unable
to comply with your requirement to identify our ethnic origin according
to your geographic rules.
We therefore suggest that you purchase our book at a bookstore.
Mona Frankel
Publisher
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