Oh, one other reason they can hold up a refund and not tell you anything, is if you are under any “criminal investigation.”:eek:
Presumably, not an issue in this case!
When faced with a problem like Una’s, I pull out my “Magic Books”.
Nolo Press’ Pocket Guide to Consumer Rights suggests that you write a letter to the IRS. In the event of a tax letter (not exactly Una’s situation, but I’m applying that advice): “Although the letter suggests you [telephone]… writing is preferable. Phone calls are rarely documented – you’ll keep getting bills.”
I’m not sure whether that would expedite matters, and Una has already contacted the Problem Resolution Office (now apparently called the Office of the taxpayer advocate). So we need to up things a notch: I would order a copy of Nolo’s Stand Up to The IRS – I don’t own a copy the Amazon reviews are good and it’s recommended by my Nolo guide. Admittedly Amazon’s search didn’t get me anything on late refunds, but I suspect that their general advice might prove useful.
If you are paid late and you think that the IRS website maintains you are entitled to interest, I’d present your concerns in writing, along with a calculation indicating the amount due to you.
(ETA: I composed this before reading Roo’s better informed missives.)
Phone calls are not only documented, they are taped. If you have the date, time, and assistor ID, the IRS wahoos can pull up and hear exactly who said what to who.
Thank you KatiRoo and M4M, and LSLGuy and Sam too. I’ll try your advice KatiRoo; since I get free legal consultations now I’m going to still talk to the attorney next week and see what they can do. And yes if I cannot get forward progress by June 1, I do intend to send very long letters to my Congressman and Senator, under my professional name and title which does carry a small amount of weight.
It’s so ludicrous. If I messed up, I expect to pay - heck, I want to pay, as a loyal, taxpaying American who wants to do the right thing. I don’t even care about the penalties; if I screw up, shame on me. And I committed no fraud on my return, and can defend every single line on it. Yargh!
I don’t know if this would work in the US, but here in Canada I would call the local office of my MP and ask for help. I was suffering from bureaucratitis a could years ago and I called his local office and I got immediate action. And I was not even a voter. It was about a holdup in the issuance of an immigrant ID card. I have become a citizen since and voted for him 5 days ago.
Around 50 years ago, my mother called her congresswoman (I still recall her name, Kathryn Granahan, R, PA) because me brother was in the Air Force and being sent to Morocco which she didn’t think safe for a Jew. It worked too.
Just a random idea, but you can always try telling the media.
eta: when I got the homebuyer’s tax credit, I filed an ammended return and they sent the check to wrong address (preparer’s fault) - when I finally figured out what was going on, they sent it to the right address, with interest - I then had to pay tax on that interest this year, sigh…
etaa: the forgurt is also cursed
A few years ago I was going round and around in a circle with the IRS. Do this! Ok, done! No, you should have done that! Ok, I just did that too! Wait, we have no record of you doing that! Send it here! I sent it everywhere! On and on it went. Finally I spoke to someone who suggested the taxpayer advocate.
Called them. Gave them the initial info, faxed copies of the appropriate documents, got called and was told I would hear from them again in 3 to 4 days. I couldn’t believe it when they called me on the 4th day like they said they would. They told me exactly what to do, and I did it. A couple of weeks later I got a call from them saying my issue was resolved, in my favor.
My only regret is that I didn’t contact them earlier.
Taxpayer Advocates Rock!
The attorney I spoke with was not only useless, they were completely unconcerned. They claimed it was legally impossible under any circumstances to do anything whatsoever until the IRS either told me what was wrong, or released by refund.
“But if they do either of those things, then legal assistance is a moot point, right?”
“Well…you need to just wait.”
The attorney confirmed that there was no statutory mandate that the IRS ever, repeat, ever release my refund, or tell me what was wrong with it, but also claimed that “would never happen.”
Well, I call the tax advocate back in two weeks and force the issue, and then it’s time to call the congressperson’s office.
Update: The Tax Advocate doesn’t seem to be helping me. I’ve been on the phone with them several times, and while they seem polite and act like they’re trying to help, they are not accomplishing anything.
The first call was essentially “well, I’ve been through your form several times and I can’t find anything wrong or even suspicious about it. There’s no good reason I can see that your refund has been delayed. I also can’t find any reason why you haven’t received a letter from the IRS. Their regulations say they were supposed to have sent you at least 2, possibly 3 letters by now, but the records show you haven’t been sent anything.”
And most recently, the response has been: “I’ve sent two letters telling them to release your refund or provide a reason why they haven’t released it. They had 2 weeks to respond, and they haven’t. But they are supposed to respond. This is very strange. They have to respond to me, and they’re not.”
So I asked what we do next. The response? “Well, I think we have to wait and see if they respond.” :rolleyes:
I’m doomed. And even if the IRS did end up paying me interest on the refund, it’s not worth the months of stress I’ve had over this. It eats at me every day, and it has greatly reduced my quality of life. The scariest thing is when person after person at the IRS themselves says that the people with my return are required by their own regulations to do X and Y, and when they don’t do X and Y…apparently, there’s no redress and no penalty. They could in theory hold my refund in perpetuity and just laugh at me.
Have you tried talking to someone in your Congressman’s office yet? You’re just one in 600,000 constituents, but if there’s one thing Congress critters love, it’s yelling at the bureaucrats.
Seconded. Every Congressperson I know of has at least one staffer dedicated to dealing with constituents’ immigration issues, and tax issues are pretty universal, so I bet they will be able to help you.
Your advice is good, and others have said the same too. I intend to wait two more weeks and then do exactly what you say.
I still have one more trick I can pull, which is to file an amended return, say I want ALL of my refund applied to next year’s taxes, then short next year’s withholding by the amount of the refund due this year. It looks good on paper but it has some IRL risks to it, namely that due to the insane bureaucracy of the IRS, they’re likely to issue me a check in December in error after I’ve already amended my return, then penalize me with interest next year for not having enough withheld. :rolleyes:
Hoo-boy, if there’s a bug in the IRS’s system, adding complexity sounds problematic.
My inclination would be be to write a letter to somebody at the IRS and cc: Everybody, including your congressional representative. Actually, I’d probably write about 4 letters, cc: ing everyone else. Phone calls can help you figure out who specifically to write.
The return was filed in February. It is now June. If this were my state, I’d know that I would have to keep waiting until September probably. But for the IRS, this seems slow.
Update
OK, I didn’t do what I said because I started being helped by a new Tax Advocate who seemed sharp, very polite, and who did exactly what they promised - when they said “I will phone you by noon on this day”, by God that’s exactly what they did.
They discovered that the sole cause of the problem was that I had had too much withholding and it was suspicious. Typically a person in my position (overseas investments, royalties from books, etc.) pays “estimated quarterly taxes.” I didn’t want the extra paperwork, so what I did was had extra withholding from my day-job. Which the IRS says in writing is perfectly fine, and the Tax Advocate said the same. The problem was, a) it’s very hard to estimate the taxes I’ll pay on my European accounts and they tanked in terms of return, and b) I received much fewer book royalties than I thought, and c) I qualified for a home energy credit one week before Christmas, which meant an extra $1,500 back. So long story short, I had so much extra withheld that they needed to check hardcopies of my paychecks.
Which was fine, if they had told me this back in February. :rolleyes:
Anyhow, the short of it is, this Friday they paid me, and they paid me interest, too so I got back an extra $100 or so from the government. It’s not worth it - the stress I had was so great a couple of times it reduced me to tears - I would gladly trade the interest for more information and knowing what was happening.
This year will be different - I’m updating my withholding on a monthly basis to make sure I hit the numbers right this time and have withheld the absolute least amount possible.
Thanks for the advice everyone, and allowing me to tell you my problems.
Without this, the Dope would be pretty boring, 'eh?
-D/a
So did you have to provide the hardcopies of your paychecks or did your employer do this? Because if that happened to me, I couldn’t do it. My company uses direct deposit and even the paycheck stubs are delivered online. So I haven’t had a hardcopy of a paycheck in years.
They had to get them directly from my employer; I don’t see any hardcopies either. Apparently this was the major holdup - my employer doesn’t run their hardcopy reoprts until June as a S.O.P. However, had the IRS simply told me they needed this, I could have had my employer expedite it and get the hardcopies back in February. :rolleyes: