Earlier this year when I filed my state income tax, I ended up owing Pennsylvania some money.

The problem was that I sold some of my Apple stock last year because I thought it was done going up for the time being.

Hah!

The joke was on me. Just a month or so ago it had a big gain.

But that’s neither here nor there.

The problem was that I wasn’t sure just how much my profit was because I had bought shares of Apple stock at different times, and furthermore, the way I keep track of gains and losses is not the way my brokerage reports them. Now I could have spent some time trying to figure out in advance how my broker would report the gains, but I decided not to bother. I just estimated what I thought the gain would amount to, added a little extra, and in December I made an estimated payment to the state.

When I went to file my tax, however, I learned I had underestimated the gain, even after I had added the fudge factor, so I still owed the state some money.

Which I paid.

Then about a month later I got a notice from the state that I still owed them $16.46.

I wasn’t sure what that was. Was it a fine for not having paid enough estimated tax? It didn’t say. It just said I owed them that much.

The dollar amount was small enough that I figured I’d expend more effort than it was worth to question it, so I just paid it online, and I figured that was that.

Then on Thursday I received an envelope with a return address from the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue.

Oh, no, what have I done now?

It was a very thin envelope.

When I opened it, I found it contained a check for $16.46.

No attached note of explanation.

So I called up my banking app on the iPhone and deposited it.

I wonder if that is the end of it.