Cool new USPS service to select areas of the U.S.

Use the ZIP Code lookup tool to see if Informed Delivery is available in your area.

https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action

• Detailed Images of Your Incoming Mail
  
  • Participate in this new USPS® service enhancement test and get images of the mail that will be placed in your mailbox each day.
  • Black and white images of your actual letter-sized mail pieces, processed by USPS® sorting equipment, will be provided to you each morning.
  • Flat-sized pieces (catalogues, magazines, etc.) may be added in the future.
• View Your Mail Online or Anywhere from Your Email
  
  • Get up to 10 mail piece images in your morning email
  • Can be viewed on any computer or smart phone.
  • Additional images available for viewing on your online dashboard

 

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interesting. I can see my junk mail before it even arrives.

 

What will they think of next?

 

You can't make this stuff up......

Although it's seemingly so......

 

This could be good if you send in coins and the buyers say it never arrived, or if you're a buyer and a miscreant seller sends something else or whatever.

 

Last thing I want! A permanent image of everything I receive. In the wrong hands that could be very damaging information. Everyone knows that information can be contorted into any way that the power-that-be wish.

 

I have been getting notified of this for a while from my "MYUPS.COM" account. Funny thing is that since it has been introduced more and more I find that my tracking updates have been delayed. I have had multiple items that were not scanned at the usual morning time frame show up later in the day along with items delivered not in my "delivery digest".

Maybe a stretch but I would not be surprised if the carriers are doing their best to sabotage the system.

The technology is not that big of a deal in the world of image capture used today. Probably puts some lazy folks on notice that their sloppy habits will be exposed.

I know my carrier is probably not happy because of the volume of mail I typically get that is addressed to my neighbors and mail that shows up with all kinds of scribble on the envelopes that it was delivered to the wrong address before I get them. The frequency is ridiculous. I have neighbors dropping my mail off and often end up delivering their mail on a regular basis.

This service allows you to "report" items in the image file that are not delivered on any given day...

By checking this box, you are indicating you did not receive the physical mailpiece represented by the image. The information you provide may be disclosed with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service or USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) for law enforcement and investigative purposes.

 

Meh, I'll be interested when I can watch a live stream video of the package from the moment tracking begins till it arrives at my door.

 

This really isn't anything new. They've been scanning our mail for a long time. It's just that they're making it available to the citizens now.

 

Been doing it for years. One of these days the states that have a 'use tax' will figure out they can try and have your mail records used to calculate a presumed tax...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-photographing-all-us-mail.html

The new service will just make it easier for the system to get hacked.

 

Except it specifically excludes packages. For now, it's only letter-sized mail; they say large flat items might be added later, but packages are tracked separately.

 

LOL. Yeah, instead of just tracking sale data, they'll definitely create a system to calculate value from black-and-white images of package exteriors.

 

One of the states (not Virginia, one of the other ones) 'allows' you to pay a flat rate based on your income and 'presumed tax' vs. you tracking all your purchases and keeping a total. Very convenient for them...I don't underestimate someone, somewhere, during an audit asking you to explain your mail (5th amendment be darned).

But that could be my pre-coffee twisted brain thinking. Once I get my second cup I won't be so cynical. Maybe.

The timing for Amazon collecting Virginia tax happened to coincide with leaving the military. Before that as a CA citizen it was not an issue for me. BUT as a Virginian (like my spouse, and me after I retired) one should have been reporting all those purchases--except as we were not living in VA on military orders we were exempt (delivery not taken within the boundaries of the Commonwealth IIRC). My accountant says I'm quite rare in that I actually report a significant use tax...basically a reasonable guess on my paypal totals...but if I ever got audited I don't want that low hanging fruit there.

 

That's NC (for one), just to VA's south. The flat rate basically assumes that you've spent 1% of your income on stuff for which you need to pay use tax. It doesn't take much eBay buying activity to tilt that assumption in your favor.

It's not quite as much of a slam-dunk now that Amazon charges sales tax. You do have the option of adjusting the payment down if you think it's too high, but I'm not sure how you'd justify (to an auditor) keeping track of your purchases enough to make that adjustment, but not enough to simply calculate what you owe.

 

Sounds like a nice way for the state to increase it's income tax by 1% without calling it an increase...the burden of proof is then on YOU to prove you don't owe the tax. Brilliant!

(Okay, definitely need to get that second cup...).

 

Nah. You can still choose to itemize, or just say "I don't owe any use tax". Most people probably still do the latter, and nearly always get away with it.

Use tax enforcement is still extremely lax, here and (presumably) elsewhere. I expect to see universal mandatory tax collection (courtesy of "the cashless society") before I'd see heavy-handed use-tax enforcement.

 

You know, Sakata, I'm with you on this. There is no legitimate reason for those scans to be permanent, IMHO.

 

I used Turbo-tax to do my NC taxes; the use tax "safe harbor" number it came up with was less than ONE-TENTH of one percent of my gross income. Yes, you pay use tax on one percent of your income, but that tax is only about 7 % of that one percent, which gives the actual tax rate on income of under one-tenth percent. I call it a "safe harbor" type action, because as I understand it, if you pay that amount, they can't come after you for more later. You do have to pay the actual tax of about 7 % on any single transaction over $1000 though.

 

The sanctity of the mail has just been eliminated. What little we have to gain by by opening this can of worms will be greatly overshadowed by lost security and lack of privacy. Just another target for hackers... We make it so easy for them.

 

Here's a good reason why they will be permanent, in the real world:

Logic dictates that images will be kept beyond the delivery date, in case of claims for failure to deliver. Regardless of the length of that additional storage time, those images - even if they're deleted from the "active" storage drive by policy - will still exist on multiple backups which, by definition, will not be altered.

Everything on the Internet is permanent, and the better you are at implementing appropriate security best practice, the more permanent it is. What we do on the Internet is our individual legacy to the future.