Friday, January 12, 2007

Faith In The IRS

I spent a portion of today on the phone with the IRS trying to resolve the problem I mentioned earlier. Despite the fact that it is a screwup on the IRS' end, my accountant is worried about the fact that they expect me to file one form when in reality I have to file a different form (which also has a different due date). Here's a basic transcript of my IRS phone call:

Call #1: Goes through quickly, explain the problem to a real person and he transfers me to the appropriate department.
Apparently the transfer doesn't go through as I end up talking to someone in the "Individual Tax Problem" hotline (not the "Business Tax Problem"). She puts me on hold...and never comes back.

Call #2: Call the same number as before, explain the problem to a real person and this time am transfered to the appropriate department. However, the first thing the person at the appropriate department says is: "My name is XYZ, my ID # is 1234, our computers are down right now so I can't help you. You can either send us a letter which will be addressed within 30 days (which is after the due date for business taxes) or you can try calling us again next week."

I'm figuring it was one of two things...1. Our gov't is using woefully out-of-date equipment and apparently doesn't have backup servers that could be used given that this is what one would assume is a really busy time for the IRS. 2. It was close to 5pm east coast time and this person didn't want to be stuck late on the phone with some ignorant yahoo (me!) when she had Friday night plans.

I'm also now wondering if thanks to this post I'm going to be audited.

No comments: