Was on hold for over 5 hours today just to get booted.If you get tired of holding. You could go to the dentist and get a root canal. It’s about the same as waiting to talk to the irs .
5 hours of eh and they kicked me off the phone. No love or leave it here other then I would love to confirm why they think I owe that when I already paid it.love it or leave it
Not about to pay that amount twice..
that's funny but I was referring to what i owe in taxes. the certified mail is not the issue. The IRS letter claims I didn't pay what I owed and now I owe that + interest. The date on the certified letter says I was on time to mail payment. The certified letter has tracking which says when they received it, over a week after mailing it. That shouldn't matter as it is post marked by 4/15. My bank has records of when they processed the payment. The fact they didn't process payment until May should also not matter except, their form letter was dated June. I don't know when exactly they generate such form letters and while i like my accountant saying to just ignore it, the fact it is a form letter means I am now a number in the bureaucratic system and it won't just go away even if i am in the right.
I have no plans to ignore it, but they do make it difficult to get to the bottom of the issue. in the past few days, I have spent the majority of being on hold in the background only to be booted off the call. The one time i got a live person, it was the wrong department of the IRS and I got transferred back to hold to be booted. I want to talk with a live agent, it's not asking for much.I would not ignore it... state the facts of your case clearly with any supporting data. Mail it to them, then forget it.
The IRS actually operates on a form of profit motive. They pursue what looks like easy money. If they can shake loose some extra money with a computer generated form letter they will. If you don't owe them, tell them so and then forget it.
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Decades ago I tangled with the IRS over a limited partnership investment in a R&D tax shelter. These were popular back in the 70s and a cleverly structured tax shelter investment could generate tax savings of several times the initial investment. My technician job back in the early 70s was working for one such R&D tax shelter business. I twisted the arm of the general partner(s) to allow me to invest. My only $3k investment was the smallest partner in the entire group, but thanks to the tax benefit it didn't cost me anything, actually netted me a profit over a few years of returns.
Long story short, the government rescinded the overly generous tax shelter law to prevent abuses like that. The IRS put a lien on my tax return (actually all of the partners) asking me to voluntarily extend the statute of limitations for another year because their legal review was not finished. I agreed to extend, but only for my specific liability associated with that partnership investment. One year later they asked me for another one year extension... this time my only liability was for that one tax shelter investment, at most a couple $K, I told them to buzz off, and they did. I was too little for them to come after.
So be little to the IRS.
JR
). I can't tell if this is fake news or not.
I am not into cheating the irs. But I am into resolution. Mail in copies of proof and no payment. Then take it from there. I once had an issue where my refund was stolen. It got resolved but took 9 months and a lot of phone calls, emails and other communication. More over I didn’t get to charge any interest. But that was the last time I ever got a refund. Better to be at 0 or owe then get a refund as out here California taxes your refund.I would lower my expectations for resolving that with just a phone call.. The phone "help" lines are for general tax advice and they routinely give out incorrect advice. They don't assign an tax agent to your case until it has escalated to a serious problem. If you really want to cut through the red tape, maybe get your senator or representative involved, but this is the opposite of being little...
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Here's another IRS story, my mother and step father (both RIP) retired to the smoky mountains outside Asheville, NC a few decades ago and operated a small tax return business out of their home. Every time a local farmer would get audited, all his neighbors would kick in extra cash receipts from their farm purchases. The IRS would end up owing that one audited farmer a big refund and never audit him again.
Note: I am not advocating cheating the IRS... Pay what you owe but not a penny more... Maybe charge them a fair price for your hours waiting on hold.
JR
PS; Reportedly the IRS has been stockpiling ammunition spending hundreds of $k just this year. IRS CID agents can carry weapons but anecdotally experience more accidental weapon discharges than intentional. You don't want to mess with the IRS CID either way (accidents happen
A refund is just a part of one's yearly income that has been given as an interest free loan to the government, so of course it is taxed when it is paid back.
something similar has happened to me several times before, but I no longer use the cell phone for these type of calls since the last time when my call got disconnected after waiting for ages....
They hung up… but yeah good idea
