My husband is an undocumented resident (apparently [IRS stuff])

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Superfluous Parentheses should be along any moment now.

Upon fetching the mail last night, I happened upon a very official looking letter from the Internal Revenue Service. I immediately thought, “Oh, the IRS. They’ve written to commend me on the bang up job I did on my taxes, and probably want to give me some money now. They must know my anniversary is next month.” Astonishingly, this is not the case. The first thing I noticed was they’re demanding more money out of me.

What? I paid my taxes! Like all good Americans, I paid them on time and with the obligatory grumble grumble… something about public schools and fire departments… grumble grumble… fucking bankers!… grumble grumble… civic duty… grumble… Here is your lousy money!

But wait, there’s more. Apparently the reason I owe more money is my spouse’s “Social Security Number (SSN) or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) was missing or Last Name doesn’t match our records provided by the Social Security Administration.” (Sigh) These people don’t have some kind of database for this sort of thing? So I probably transposed a digit somewhere, and they send me a ridiculous letter demanding money, instead of trying to verify that the spouse is a real person, and the mistyped SSN is an honest and minor error. I would imagine there are a gazillion typos of tax forms every year. Does this mean they stop the presses entirely and hound people every time this happens? Jesus Fuck.

So of course, I have a copy of what I sent to them, and his SSN is not missing, and it is not typed incorrectly. There is no typo. There is a read-o. So I call them and tell them they’ve made a mistake, hoping to be done with this all. I’m asked a bunch of questions, including my spouse’s SSN which the lady on the phone states matches what she has. So… is it cleared up then? No. For some reason, this doesn’t resolve anything. Instead, I have to listen to the lady tap away at the keyboard, sifting through years of my taxes, asking me to verify what I entered on line 14a (or whichever), confirm my blood type, zip code, employer, favorite pizza topping, etc. Since all these questions aren’t actually getting me anywhere, I ask, “What can I do to make this go away? Can I photocopy his SS card and mail it to you guys? Will that suffice?” She says, “Yeah, do that.” (Sigh) I’m going to do that, but that’s not my question. I ask again, “Will that take care of it?” She says, “It should.” It should. It should have been taken care of in the first place.

Fucking illegal alien husband/monkeys at the IRS.

2

I got a letter a couple of weeks ago saying I’d underreported my income by exactly 50% and I owe… well, more than I’ve got.

Turns out our payroll processing service reported my 2007 income twice! :mad:

3

Hmmm. You thought this? Sounds like last night you were partaking of the very same drugs you were influenced by the day you married the stranger to get him his green card! :wink:

More seriously… :::headdesk::: on your behalf. I have no advice but I hope this all gets straightened out, and soon. DOCUMENT EVERY INTERACTION, and good luck!!

4

You can fax stuff directly to them and I would suggest this instead. Be near a fax machine when you call and insist on faxing it directly to that person. Don’t let them lie and say they don’t have a fax- that’s a lie.

We have a million clients who were told to mail things, did, and then the IRS claimed 10 different times they never got it.

If you’re dead set on mailing it, be sure to send it Certified.

5

Only a half pint of Whisky. It was a school night, you know.

Ooh, good idea! I already mailed what I had certified, but I can always make more copies and fax. I need this to go away yesterday.

6

I’m in a somewhat similar situation, although not, thankfully, with the IRS. I moved to a new, cheaper apartment last February. I still had six months left on my lease, but they were trying to renovate the whole complex, and I cut a deal with the property manager to get out of my lease for the cost of my security deposit, so they could go in and fix up my place. Except, somehow the local office never communicated this deal to the head office back East, and they’ve turned me over to a collection agency to get the rest of the money I “owe” for breaking my lease.

Luckily, I’ve got everything in writing, so I faxed the collection agency a copy of the agreement I signed, thinking that would take care of it. Nope. A week latter, I got a letter from the collection agency, which blatantly lies, saying that I had promised to pay the money by the 26th. Now I’ve got to get the leasing office at my old apartment to call the collection agency and tell them to fuck off in person. Which is fine, except they seem to be about as prompt in contacting the agency as they were in letting their own upper echelons know about the agreement we signed letting me out of my lease in the first place.

7

Gah! See, here’s the thing about silly paperwork mistakes: They happen. But for the love of cold drinks in the summer, why do they have to be an unending boondoggle?

So I call just now and ask the woman I’m speaking with if I can fax a copy of the spouse’s SS card over, and before I can even finish talking she [del]tells[/del] yells to me that my spouse needs to call since it’s his error. I explain to the woman that it’s MY tax return and the letter was addressed to ME. (The guy and I file separately. He’s intent on paying higher taxes… so that he can hide his millions from me?) I have to enter my spouse’s SSN even though we’re filing jointly, so I would like to have this corrected. No lie, the bitch hung up on me.

Unbelievable.

8

She sure is assuming a lot. I mean… is he even bilingual?

9

I don’t know. I think he’s some kind of Mexican. His skin is brownish/beige, anyway. He could be some kind of A-rab. I don’t really pay attention, and am unsure of what language(s) he speaks.

So I’m on the phone with someone right now, and she’s managed to clear up this whole fiasco. Now I’m on hold as she’s placing a (fruitless) complaint against the gash who hung up on me. Luckily, when they speed through their names and ID numbers, I make them slow down so I can write it. Not that this matters… I don’t know why I bother to complain about things like this. She’s never going to get fired, and will continue being a bitch to everyone.

10

Not unbelievable, coming from someone who deals with them every day. I know it’s an epic pain in the ass, but call back. If the person answers and you can tell they are just a total dick, hang up and call back. You’ll get someone nice eventually, even if it takes some time.

11

Better yet, get yourself a second phone line, and get yourself into the hold queue on both of them. Then if it appears that a reboot is indicated, you can just go over to the other line.

And jump back into the queue with the first one.

12

12 or so years ago I got a nastygram from the IRS. It had my correct name on it, but it said I owed them something like $50,000 for unreported earnings on from a jazz club and record label. I’ve never owned a jazz club or record label.

I used to live in Toledo, OH, and there was a guy there who had the same name first and last name as I did. I looked at the SSN on the letter and official documents they’d sent me. Nowhere close to mine.

I called up the IRS and said, “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“So you’re telling me you’re not the Fallen Angel who owned this bar and record label and that you don’t owe us any money.”

“Right.”

“For verification, may I have YOUR SSN?”

“Lady, to get out of owing you $50,000 you can have my kidney.”

I give her the digits. She tap tap taps away for a good long time.

“Oh, okay, our mistake. Do you by any chance know the whereabouts of the other Fallen Angel?”

“Um, I left Toledo two years ago. I’d been to his club a few times, but that’s my only relationship with the guy. If it helps you out in the future, I’m a tall, thin, white guy in my mid 20s. He’s a tall, thickly built black guy in his late 50s.”

“No need to be sarcastic, Mr. Angel.”