Mike O’Donnell isn’t asking for much. He just wants his apostrophe back.Who could blame him? He’s proud of his name, proud of his heritage. He shouldn’t be forced to change his name just because some computer tells him to.O’Donnell, a former councilman in Munroe Falls, has tried for the past several years to file his Ohio tax return electronically.Good for him. When people file electronically, everyone wins. Well, everyone except the post office.Filing online saves money, saves trees and saves time.But every year when O’Donnell tries to file electronically, he is rejected. The state’s tax computers simply won’t acknowledge the presence of an apostrophe.So year after year, O’Donnell files the old-fashioned way — by snail mail.Sure, he could swallow hard and become known in certain circles as Michael Odonnell. But why should he have to?“It feels like they’re trying to take away my heritage,” he says. “It’s like Ellis Island — changing my name.”O’Donnell’s great-great- grandfather, Hugh O’Donnell, emigrated from Donegal, Ireland, in 1880 and settled in Cincinnati. The family lived there until after World War II, when Mike’s father came to Akron to work at Goodyear.The computer technology required to deal with an apostrophe is not exactly obscure. O’Donnell has no trouble renewing his Ohio driver’s license, apostrophe and all.So what’s wrong with the tax man?O’Donnell began to formally ask that question two years ago, writing to the tax commissioner and several state legislators. They not only failed to address the issue, but didn’t even bother to respond.O’Donnell finally got a nibble last year after state Sen. Frank LaRose, R-
Copley, took office. A LaRose aide told O’Donnell his complaint had been forwarded to the tax department and he would be notified once the tax people responded.Apparently, they never did, because, as of Wednesday, O’Donnell was still waiting.Granted, state legislators have more important things to worry about than apostrophes. No rational person wants them chewing up huge chunks of time trying to right what, in the overall scheme of things, is a relatively minor wrong.But how hard is it to tweak a computer system so it can handle apostrophes? What’s the state using, Windows 95?Last week, LaRose’s office, prompted by an email from me, again contacted the Department of Taxation. This time, an answer came back:“Ohio’s personal income tax electronic system is built upon the Internal Revenue Service’s personal income tax electronic system … so that when an individual files both state and federal returns, our system is able to match what was entered into the IRS return system so that returns can be processed faster and uniformly.”O’Donnell files his federal taxes electronically, via TurboTax, and the apostrophe has never been an issue. Perhaps the TurboTax software removes the apostrophe before linking with the IRS without the consumer knowing it.In any event, LaRose says he’s going to press the issue.“It’s something that we should change,” he says. “What we found out from the Department of Taxation today is that this is on a list of things they need to improve.“It’s clearly not an emergency issue, but as they’re working on getting better at the electronic filing, this is something they want to fix.”LaRose is scheduled to meet with the tax folks on an unrelated matter in a couple of weeks. He promises to raise this issue and press for specifics.A director of data analysis for Progressive Insurance, Mike O’Donnell (not to be confused with the Matthew Perry character in the movie 17 Again) is quite likely not alone in his apostrophe problem.The latest census estimates say Ohio is home to 1.6 million people of Irish descent — fully 12 percent of the state’s population.Another 742,000 Ohioans claim Italian ancestry, where apostrophes are common as well.Mike O’Donnell without his apostrophe is like Catherine Zeta-Jones without her hyphen. Or Frank LaRose without his capital R.It just doesn’t fly.It shouldn’t have to.Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.