What I have learned when dealing with authorities: Call the boss. Don't bother with trying it the "normal" way, you have to knock at the door on top. Usually, things happen quickly when they nod. After all you are honest enough reporting your Steem earnings which is not self-evident. In your case, I would start with the state and federal MP. They love helping out in such cases. If they don't , threaten them with negative PR.

On the price peaks: The first of the two drops happened when the payout was introduced for steem. A lot of whales got themselves a golden shower and that screwed up the price for a while. The second one is I believe a manipulation of the price to keep the Steem cheap and floating. The price is quite constant at around 1$ since a while although other successful crytos went up. My hunch is that would have happened to steem too if there weren't a couple of whales keeping the price down by selling off.