Why does such an important federal agency continue to make life so difficult and unfair for it's citizens?
(SALEM) - This is a story about an individual who made the mistake of not having all his “I's” dotted or his “T's” crossed. This man and his significant other have lived together for almost ten years. He is an average blue-collar worker and she is a stay-at-home mom. They have had two children together. One is almost six years of age and the other is seven.
For the last nine years this blue-collar worker has provided a home for his significant other and has filed taxes claiming her as a dependent. When their children were born, he claimed them as his dependants, also.
Unfortunately, upon the birth of their first daughter, the mother gave her last name and not the father’s. This didn’t seem to be an issue. For five years it was not, as each year he faithfully filed his taxes. Suddenly this working man received a letter from the IRS stating he was being audited and would not be receiving his refund. The issue was the head-of-household status and the earned income credit. Upon calling the IRS he was told his name was just arbitrarily pulled out for auditing. They said he would be receiving a letter from them with details.
The letter arrived stating he had to prove residency and parental rights to his oldest daughter. He had to prove that she actually was his child and that she really had been living with him all this time. He provided documents from the school, from social service agencies, and provided a copy of rental agreement showing all of their names on it. He had copies of documents from their insurance company showing the names of the couple and their children. All this information was sent in to the IRS.
A letter was received apologizing for not being able to get to the materials received but they would be getting back to him as soon as they did this.
They did get back to him, stating they now needed a copy of the oldest daughter’s birth certificate showing the father’s name. The original birth certificate had burned up in a fire and they had to provide a notarized affidavit to the state in able to get a new birth certificate showing parental name change of his daughter to his last name. This was done and sent to the IRS. The blue-collar worker even went to the local IRS to have them fax the documents to the number given to them in the letter they received. The local IRS was very helpful, by the way, but didn’t really have a handle as to why all of this was necessary.
Thinking all was completed, they waited for their much needed tax refund, but instead they got another letter stating the requested documents had never been received and that the case for both years was closed. They had to start all over again by filing a 1040X and provide the IRS with all the information that had previously sent.
Now, the lesson learned for this young couple was to... always keep copies of every transaction taking place with the IRS, document every conversation, and get names of the people that you talk to. Make sure you comply with the dates given and don’t ever assume that the internal structure of our federal Internal Revenue Service really knows that each other are doing!
So now it’s back to first base for the young blue-collar worker, who hopes the system will work for him this time and hopefully by next year when he files his taxes again it will all be cleared up and he will get his refunds back. Does anyone want to start taking bets on this one?
Tangle With the IRS! A True Learning Experience of a Young Oregon Blue Collar WorkerSalem-News.com