I hate the IRS. Wait... no, I don't.
Jan. 12th, 2010 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amanda_loddenI've been on the phone with the IRS for the past 45 minutes, trying to find out what happened to a payment that they didn't apply in April (despite cashing the check the same week it was written). They sent a letter in early December, I sent a letter back with a copy of the canceled check, and yesterday we got a notice in the mail that we still had a balance due and they hadn't heard from us at all and they were getting a bit snippy about the whole matter and we'd darned well better drop them a line soon.
So, I called, because clearly the letter thing hadn't worked out so well.
After explaining three times to the woman on the phone that what I sent last month was a letter with a copy of the check that they received months and months and months ago, and not, in fact, an actual payment, I did not have high hopes for this conversation ending well. I was prepared to write a nice long rant about how much I hate the IRS and how awful it is to ever have to deal with it, and then make MORE copies of the canceled check and the bank statement and the letter I sent and haul myself over to the local IRS office in Pontiac and sit there until someone bothered to acknowledge that I gave them some information (in fact, the map and phone number for the local office is still up in another window).
But this time when the IRS agent came back on the phone after "researching my account" for the second time, she said "I've found your payment and am in the process of applying it to your account, do you mind holding for another four or five minutes" instead of the "and you say you sent a payment last month?" routine that we did the last two times. (And then came back again after 8 minutes and asked me to hold for another "four or five more minutes" as if I had a real choice in the matter.)
Soooo... they still have awful systems and it's hard to get a human being on the phone, but at least once you get one, it might be possible to get something fixed.
Still, I waited until she actually came back on the line and said "Yes, everything is sorted out now" before hitting "Post" on this. Because you never really know.
So, I called, because clearly the letter thing hadn't worked out so well.
After explaining three times to the woman on the phone that what I sent last month was a letter with a copy of the check that they received months and months and months ago, and not, in fact, an actual payment, I did not have high hopes for this conversation ending well. I was prepared to write a nice long rant about how much I hate the IRS and how awful it is to ever have to deal with it, and then make MORE copies of the canceled check and the bank statement and the letter I sent and haul myself over to the local IRS office in Pontiac and sit there until someone bothered to acknowledge that I gave them some information (in fact, the map and phone number for the local office is still up in another window).
But this time when the IRS agent came back on the phone after "researching my account" for the second time, she said "I've found your payment and am in the process of applying it to your account, do you mind holding for another four or five minutes" instead of the "and you say you sent a payment last month?" routine that we did the last two times. (And then came back again after 8 minutes and asked me to hold for another "four or five more minutes" as if I had a real choice in the matter.)
Soooo... they still have awful systems and it's hard to get a human being on the phone, but at least once you get one, it might be possible to get something fixed.
Still, I waited until she actually came back on the line and said "Yes, everything is sorted out now" before hitting "Post" on this. Because you never really know.
