VOW hip-bumps Beck to the side: VOW's bad, bad, I mean bad clash with the IRS

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay.

We ended up owing a kajillion bucks to the IRS when the dust settled last April. Trump’s mega-mongo tax cut means we didn’t have to pay a bazillion bucks as usual. BFD.

I wait until April 15th to bust open the piggy bank, and I pay online. The form to pay was slightly different. We’ve filed joint returns since the covered wagon days, and the IRS typically records everything under the man’s SS number. Chauvinists! April’s form said THIS time, whoever fills out the form and uses the credit or debit card, is to put the payment under the SS number of the cardholder.

Hey! I read directions! I try to follow them! I did some second and third thoughts, I read the damned directions again, and debated on using Mr VOW’s SS number.

I typed in my number.

:eek:

In June, we get a nastygram from the IRS. “You owe us that kajillion plus penalties and interest! Pay up!”

I tried to get a copy of the electronic transaction from the bank. Mr VOW ends up calling the bank, explains the situation to a very nice customer rep, who says, “You paid IRS from your account with us? No problem, we’ll hamdle it. Here’s the claim number.”

We figured done deal, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yesterday Mr VOW brings home two certified letters from the IRS, one to him, one to me, saying pay up or else we’re gonna skin you alive. Please make note the letter with MY name has MY SS number, too!

We physically go to the bank, where the Personal Banker verifies that yes, my transaction did in fact occur on April 15th, and the IRS got the money from my account! The Personal Banker called various numbers, and ended up calling IRS. The recording said wait time would be 30 to 60 minutes. The bank was short-staffed, so he had to put on a teller hat, while Mr VOW and I parked our butts in the waiting area and Mr VOW called IRS. Personal Banker wanted to be on hand in case they needed any official bank-type verification.

Two hours, two numb butts, one screaming neck, and an Imitrex plus a couple of pain pills later, Mr VOW gets to talk to an IRS real human being. Sad, miserable story is explained. Human being checks both SS numbers, as I say that the two numbers have been filing joint returns for the past (no exaggeration) forty-five years.

Human being comes back on the line and says, “Oops.”

:smack:

We’re supposed to get an official “oops” letter in the mail in 14 days.
~VOW

2

Holy Crappola. VOW. You broke the IRS death clamp. Here’s to you!
Buy lotto tickets for real.

3

I got a banana milkshake instead.
~VOW

4

The IRS system has been hopelessly out of date for many decades. They would rather hound you mercilessly than fix the goddamn thing. We had our checking account frozen way back in the 90s because the IRS put a lien on it for tax evasion. We had to call them from Africa (at an astronomical cost) to try to clear it up. They claimed that my wife had never paid taxes, including for the current year, when in fact she’d been paying in since she was 17 years old. Turns out that after we got married a few years prior, we had started listing me as the primary and her as the secondary. The IRS computer system is, or was, apparently unable to link the two SSNs, even though we filed jointly. They were, however, able to track down the fucking joint back account which was in both of our names, but were too stupid to check for a filing under my name. :rolleyes: Also, their hand-crank operated computer system had somehow hidden her past filings because she was now joint-filing, or some such stupid bullshit.

Once we told them to look under my SSN, they gave some lame apology and removed the lien.

5

I’m not going to make a sigh of relief until I get that letter in 13 days that has both names, both SS numbers, and says “Oops.”

My measly kajillion is NOTHING compared to the Scrooge McDuck bucks that our Fearless Leader has in his piggy bank. Why don’t they go hose him for a while?
~VOW

6

I had to go like 4 back-and-forth letters with the IRS a few years ago. The upside is that if you’re right, they will generally eventually acknowledge it. But it’s a huge pain in the ass. Sorry :frowning:

7

Ex----actly!

8

Soon as the GOP stops cutting the IRS’ budget at every turn, and gives them enough money to do things right, you can blame the IRS if they don’t improve.

But the GOP loves to go after the IRS. It’s always been a good bogeyman, and of course if they’re short on resources, they don’t have the ability to audit very many of the rich people’s rather complicated tax returns. Cha-ching!

9

Because he has an officer following behind him carting the ‘Football’. Nothing says escalation like Plutonium. :smiley:

10

Long ago we had a tax catastrophe. Messed up taxes on a business run out of the home. Once we realized this we paid up.

Years later we got a terrifying notice that we owed all that plus interest. Somehow they had lost their record of our payment, and we were ordered to pay now or suffer liens. Our tax advisor said, under the circumstances, pay up, they will eventually figure it out and refund you.

They did not. But a year or two after THAT, they AGAIN contacted us and ordered us to pay a third time.

My beloved was freaking out and retreated to leave me to deal with it. I used the “chat with a representative” button on their webpage and spent several hours typing furiously with an agent.

Finally something I said triggered an idea and the agent went and looked under some keyword they had previously ignored and found out we’d paid – twice over.

I was able to emerge from my computer room and inform my anxious beloved, “I talked to them. THEY will be sending US checks.” Got to be the hero that time! Ultimately they sent us seven checks totaling a few thou (I’m still not sure why it was parceled out that way).

If I hadn’t accidentally blurted out the keyword (which I do not now remember) we’d probably be undergoing drone strikes by this point.