Sunday, March 20, 2005
IRS
I got a letter from the IRS yesterday. Scary when that happens. But surprisingly the letter said (paraphrasing here)
"In looking at your taxes and the pitiful amount of money your family earned last year it has come to our attention that you screwed up and we might owe you more money than you asked for. So we're sending you this worksheet, which you must have overlooked, so we can send you more money."
I know the IRS is trying to repair it's bad guy image but I was shocked. Well shocked and a little skeptical because I did my taxes and quadruple checked them for errors. I assumed they were wrong. Shawn was sure they were just stalling because they want to keep our $3000 in THEIR interest bearing account as long as possible. (lol)
But I did their little Additional Child Tax Credit form. And just as I suspected we didn't qualify. In reviewing the forms though I found an error. A rather large error it seemed! On my taxes I put a $2000 child tax credit where I discovered it should have only been $353! Yikes. Then I realized that it was all a trap. They thought I had cheated on my taxes and this was their way of verifying that I was a crook!
If I adjusted that line on my taxes and made it correct then we DID in fact qualify for the Additional Child Tax Credit of $800+. So I was at a loss what to do. I showed Shawn the predicament and asked for his advice. He said to go ahead and do the form correctly and send it in and let them sort out the mess. I figured if I did that I should send in a little note explaining myself. Maybe they would be nice.
So I did the form and then went back and re-did my taxes from line 33 down just to see what our new return might be. But what I found was that the line where I made my big $1647 mistake was erroneous. It cancels itself out by being less than $2000
a couple lines later anyway!
So, the good news is that we will be getting an additional $800 in our tax return (well $400 since half goes to Amy). The bad news though is it could delay our return for up to 8 more weeks! This after already having waited almost two months!
Someday I will get smart (and have money) and get someone else to do my taxes!
Comments-[ comments.]
"In looking at your taxes and the pitiful amount of money your family earned last year it has come to our attention that you screwed up and we might owe you more money than you asked for. So we're sending you this worksheet, which you must have overlooked, so we can send you more money."
I know the IRS is trying to repair it's bad guy image but I was shocked. Well shocked and a little skeptical because I did my taxes and quadruple checked them for errors. I assumed they were wrong. Shawn was sure they were just stalling because they want to keep our $3000 in THEIR interest bearing account as long as possible. (lol)
But I did their little Additional Child Tax Credit form. And just as I suspected we didn't qualify. In reviewing the forms though I found an error. A rather large error it seemed! On my taxes I put a $2000 child tax credit where I discovered it should have only been $353! Yikes. Then I realized that it was all a trap. They thought I had cheated on my taxes and this was their way of verifying that I was a crook!
If I adjusted that line on my taxes and made it correct then we DID in fact qualify for the Additional Child Tax Credit of $800+. So I was at a loss what to do. I showed Shawn the predicament and asked for his advice. He said to go ahead and do the form correctly and send it in and let them sort out the mess. I figured if I did that I should send in a little note explaining myself. Maybe they would be nice.
So I did the form and then went back and re-did my taxes from line 33 down just to see what our new return might be. But what I found was that the line where I made my big $1647 mistake was erroneous. It cancels itself out by being less than $2000
a couple lines later anyway!
So, the good news is that we will be getting an additional $800 in our tax return (well $400 since half goes to Amy). The bad news though is it could delay our return for up to 8 more weeks! This after already having waited almost two months!
Someday I will get smart (and have money) and get someone else to do my taxes!
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