I have been trying to get my late aunt’s estate settled for almost 2 years. The last issue is her final income tax return. The IRS owes the estate a couple of thousand dollars. The return was filed timely about 16 months ago. Additional correspondence from me and the accountants also included several copies of the Letters Testamentary. After several calls over a span of many months and being on hold for about 1 ½ hours every time, they finally said they can now see my Letters Testamentary in the file and can actually talk to me now. This was back in April. The first advice they gave me in April was try waiting 30 days. 30 days later they said since waiting 30 days didn’t work, next I should try waiting another 60 days. About 40 days into that 60 I got a letter saying I need to wait another 60 days but at least they assured me that they didn’t need any more information from me. Now I got a letter stating that I never sent the Letters Testamentary and must send them so that they can process the return.
Of course, my first thought was to include a snarky cover letter telling them between me and the accountants that they have received the Letters Testamentary at least two or three times by now, they acknowledged they received at least one of them, and also they just sent a letter saying that they have received all of the information they needed. However, I guess I will just send them a copy of their letter as they requested and another copy of the Letters Testamentary. And like everything else, sent by certified mail return receipt requested. A lot of good that does.
What would you guys do? Could you resist telling them what you really think or would you just send what was requested? I suspect none of it will be seen by a human being at the IRS.
This is the same IRS that told me in 2020 that I never sent my return. I sent them a copy right away but I did tell them that I thought it was interesting that they never received my original (paper) return but pulled my check out and cashed it in just a few days.
I would send them it, again, but I would also get in touch with your Congressperson’s office, and see if they can get an actual managerial-type person at the IRS to intervene.
I work for a different federal agency, and yes, Congressional inquiries are of some “very mild” utility.
But the main thing I’d urge is to be happy it is only a couple of thousand . Sure, you should keep sending the requested info every couple of months, and no there is no excuse for their ineptitude. But you are not likely going to be able to really speed things up by whatever you do. An unfortunate situations but - again - at least it is a small amount of .
I tried fixing it right after I posted but it wouldn’t let me. It did let me fix a line spacing in the body of the post though. Is this normal? I don’t see the need for “the” in the title but it doesn’t really bother me.
Yup. You can edit the content of a post for the first 15 minutes after you initially make it, but if you start a thread, the thread title can’t be edited by you (though a mod can fix it, as @puzzlegal did).
This message board is much more “locked down” than most Discourse message boards. But it’s probably normal for this board.
I thought it would be easier to parse “the IRS” than just “IRS”. You might want the title to indicate you are open to advice, though, and aren’t just ranting outside the pit.
While it is somewhat of a rant, I was really wondering what others thought of snarky cover letters. Could they resist including one? In a lot of cases, not just with the IRS, they don’t really do any good and have the potential to make things worse. They might make you feel better though,
My advice is to write the snarky cover letter, and then send a polite and serious cover letter, while sharing the snarky version with friends and family.
Agreed. Odds are that the person reading your cover letter is not the person responsible for earlier run-arounds and lost letters, and being a jerk in that letter is likely to backfire – at best, it won’t make things any easier for you.
Write a snarky cover letter as your first draft. Vent and get it out of your system. And then delete it.
I sympathize. The IRS doesn’t seem to know its ass from its elbow, to employ an apt cliché, these days.
(NM … I just wrote out the details of a very frustrating story with the IRS, but realized it is very long and not all that interesting. TLDR version: the IRS either messes up its own records, or when pressed for proof that its records are actually correct, can’t provide that proof.)
In my experience, there’s a good chance that the order to send this new email you got went out before the documents actually arrived, and when they did, they didn’t rescind this order, so you got another set of requests. If that’s truly the case, then even if you ignore this new request the prior one should still process. But if that’s not what happened and they actually lost your stuff, sending it again can’t hurt.
Do they still have field offices? It might be worth finding a place where you can go in, documents in hand, and talk to a human, who will then be hard-pressed to deny that your documents exist.
The only one near me appears to be permanently “temporarily closed.” I might be near one during Christmas vacation in another part of the country. At the rate things are going, I see little hope of this getting resolved by Christmas.
Oh, please post it here instead of sending it to the IRS!
As @kenobi_65 says, I’m sure the low-level clerks who read the cover letters aren’t any happier about it than you are. Your goal is to get your case forwarded to someone who can actually do something, rather than shoved to the bottom of the pile.
But the GOP kept cutting their budget- and recently they got a nice increase- which was cut in a compromise. They need extra time to do anything. The GOP is full of tax cheats- they hate the IRS.
That wouldnt help, that person could not even access the account.
My suggestion is to cool down and wait.
You can call the TAS- they used to have a guy in every field office and a full taxpayer Service unit- but of course the GOP made them cut that.
Here is the number-
Contact the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS). TAS is an independent organization within the IRS whose employees assist taxpayers who are experiencing economic harm, who are seeking help in resolving tax problems that have not been resolved through normal channels, or who believe that an IRS system or procedure is not working as it should.
You can contact TAS by calling the TAS toll-free case intake line at 877-777-4778 or TTY/TDD 800-829-4059 to determine whether you are eligible for assistance. You can also call or write to your local taxpayer advocate, whose phone number and address are listed in your local telephone directory and in Publication 1546, Taxpayer Advocate Service – Your Voice at the IRS. You can file Form 911, Request For Taxpayer Advocate Service Assistance (And Application for Taxpayer Assistance Order), or ask an IRS employee to complete it on your behalf. For more information, go to Taxpayer Advocate Service.
Dont be mad at the iRS, be mad at the GOP- it is entirely their fault.
The problem is that this is holding up distribution of the entire estate. I think maybe some of the other heirs are getting upset with me. If I could be certain of the $2000 refund amount I would just pay it out of my own pocket just to get it over with.
I’ve looked into the T.A.S. This situation doesn’t seem to fit their criteria for service.
“Taxpayers who are experiencing economic harm, who are seeking help in resolving tax problems that have not been resolved through normal channels”
Try it.
And why is it holding up the distribution? Do you have an estate lawyer? If there were say 4 heirs, each person just gets $500 less and waits for that.
Anyway, I called my Bro and got you the best advice i could.
