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Speaking of the IRS….
Well, at least someone was. The Nightly News featured about a 53-second segment on how the IRS is completely backed up on processing the 2020 tax returns. If you blinked, you would have missed it. However, it caught my attention because last week, we received a one-page letter that we had a credit that was deposited in our “account.” Wow, I said to my husband, I think we have a refund! I put it aside, then looked at it again and decided to call our accountant.
His assistant asks me: “Did you owe money in 2020? (we always do so the answer was yes). Is it the same amount you owed? I wasn’t sure, but planned to dig out the return. She said they probably threw it away, but deposited your check.
“Excuse me, but what did you just say, I asked?! Could you repeat that – did you say they threw away our tax return??”
She said yes. That is what they are hearing, and they have been getting more and more of these over the past 18 months! I pulled out the return, which was sent certified, return receipt. It was stamped “received”, and with the stamped signature of the receiver. The amount we owed that year was the same amount on the letter for a credit. She said we’ll probably have to re-send it. I thought we sent it electronically, but then send the hard copy with the W-2 attachments, etc. It was sent well before April 15th. So they took the check, which was sent with the return and deposited it, and our return went into the netherworld.
From the New York Times:
The Internal Revenue Service will kick off the approaching tax season with a backlog of at least 10 million unprocessed returns from last year, according to a new report by the national taxpayer advocate. The pile of returns remaining are from the “most challenging year taxpayers and tax professionals have ever experienced,” the advocate, Erin M. Collins, wrote in her annual report.
The I.R.S. itself warned taxpayers this week that staffing shortages and backlogs would translate into another frustrating filing season, which begins on Jan. 24 and runs through April 18 (in most states).
This is the same IRS that the Biden administration is trying to tap to start monitoring the bank accounts of US citizens?
What could possibly go wrong? Are they running an ad on Indeed.com for more agents?! Shouldn’t processing the returns be a priority, and how many are waiting for a refund? How many more issues will be blamed on COVID or a lack of workers?
Make sure you keep track of your filings and do it earlier if possible. The 53-second story on the news came and went quickly and no one else is talking about it. It seems the “curve” we were told to get over has grown into a mountain.
Published in General
The Taxation scheme is absurd.
Government: “Fill out these forms and guess what you owe us. If you guess wrong, we can take more of your money and send you to jail.”
Taxpayer: “OK, so you know how much I owe. Why don’t you just tell me?”
Government: “Because then we can’t fine you or send you to jail for guessing wrong.”
Happened to me too. My accountant printed a copy of last year’s return and photocopied the letter I received, put both in an addressed envelope and had me mail it to the IRS. Before I mailed it off I wrote on the letter, “Please don’t lose the return this time.”
Maybe those staffers who are assigned to digging up tax information to be leaked to Pro Publica need to be re-assigned.
Same thing happened to us.
About a month ago I got a letter from the IRS instructing me to send them another copy of our 2020 Form 1040. They had received the payment we sent with the return but lost the return itself, apparently.
We always send a paper return in since TurboTax balks at filing our return electronically — some problem with the way a limited partnership in which we own shares reports their tax information.
In any case, the IRS only just now figured out they didn’t have our return.
Yeah, we got one too. As I read the following, they haven’t gotten around to entering the paper return into their system because of the backlog. After a while, their system generates a notice automatically because it expects a return from the taxpayer because of other filings that they’ve received like a W-2 or 1099. They deposited the check when they opened the envelope, and (hopefully) set the return aside to be processed later.
So the notices are creating a lot of unnecessary correspondence. Not that you should ignore IRS requests for information. The notice actually threatens to just take the overpayment if you don’t respond. A normal business would be red – faced about being slow to process previous correspondence and lose customers over threatening customers for their own failing. Nope.
Of the thousands of Treasury employees who could’ve pointed out that it was wrong to issue notices to taxpayer because IRS is backlogged, it didn’t happen apparently. It takes congressional pressure to stop them.
Gives you some idea how the Afghan withdrawal happened.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/irs-suspends-sending-automated-notices
This same government thinks it should run all healthcare in the country.
I’m going to add a sticky note with the same message……..
This is a bit scary……they’re just now admitting the backlog and how do they not have the returns? Will sending them again, which is being suggested by most accountants, increasing the backlog because now they have to process two returns??!! Ugh…..
I got one. it was for interest?
I got a refund last year, did not owe.
Very weird.
Any progressives getting their 1040s thrown away?
I called last night (from the far side of the world) their international number. I called 20 seconds after my phone told me it was 7 PM where I was, meaning that their lines were open. By the time I got through the preliminary phone menu sorting, they were already so inundated with calls that I wasn’t even put in the line.
For 2019, they didn’t apply the child tax credit we filed for, and claimed we owed them a bundle of money. Only recognized two exemptions, none for the children. I had to send them a letter explaining it, and three times they’ve said they’re working on it and need 60 days.
For 2021, they sent us a bunch of advance child tax credit handouts. We’re ineligible because we file Form 2555, but they sent them anyway. Married-filing-jointly and I opted out, but they still sent them to my wife. These are for the kids they thought we didn’t even have in 2019.
The IRS is epically facepalmy these days. To be fair, some people on the phone do answer, do listen, and do give useful information. We have a path forward for straightening out the 2021 absurdities.
That was brilliantly done.
I think those thoughts every year when doing our guesstimates. Only with quite a few
Expletives Deletedin my thought bubble.Yes, I noticed that if you wanted to opt-out of those child tax credits, and you were joint-filer, both you and your wife had to opt-out.
We both got notices this year about how much of those advance payments we received. My notice listed half, and my wife’s notice listed half.
Did you actually go through with that face recognition thing that the IRS required if you wanted to opt out? I tried, and it never worked, and then I was glad I didn’t, because I really don’t trust a third-party government vendor with such personal information. But I see the IRS is going to require it now to access any IRS.gov data you might have.
Oh and ObamaCare insurance premium payments operate on the same principle.
Even worse. The woman at an insurance agency who tried to help me sign up for Calif covered, Calif’s version of the ACA, she kept getting impatient with me.
There were some options with which I could describe the type of career my spouse and I are participating in through our self employment. But publisher or publishing company was not an option.
“Just make something up!” said the insurance lady…
I’m like, “On a federal form, you think I should make something up? Really?”
In the end I caved and didn’t apply but waited out the days til I was eligible for MediCare.
Not yet.
How were you able to opt-out then?
That rule wasn’t in place when I set up my online IRS account.
I believe you can still opt out online without using the facial recognition thing, for a few more months. In addition, I think you can opt out by letter accompanying the voided check.
Nope. And they never sent us a check. It was direct-deposited whether we wanted it or not.
Good luck accessing that account without surrendering your face to ID.me.
Ouch.
I am so lucky they didn’t do that to us.
I am so sorry. I wish I could help. Sending a letter might still be possible. I don’t know. Good luck.
It’s still working this week.
They’ll be coming for you!
This is something new – ID.me? Is that something you do if you are filing yourself on line? Oh my gosh!
Huh. I thought everyone had seen that.
This was in the news last week.
IRS will require taxpayers to sign up with ID.me to access their online accounts
From the linked article:
That doesn’t sound sketchy in the least.![Eye Roll Emoji [Free Download in PNG] | Emoji Island](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1061/1924/products/Face_With_Rolling_Eyes_Emoji_large.png?v=1571606035)
Online filing won’t require it — supposedly — but if you want to access your IRS.gov account, you’ll need to.
I’m against it.
Yesterday I spent a half hour (after more than an hour on hold) with a very nice Soc Sec person, who was trying to help me register for Soc Sec, or Medicare or whatever. The ways of establishing my identity were onerous to me, and impossible since I use a flip phone; photographing my drivers lic., doing something else with a touch-screen phone, photographing federal ID, establishing voice recognition patterns, things like that. I finally chose some form of verification which included my address and was told that I now had to wait 3-4 weeks for a letter with an access code in it. I asked if I could do it over and get a text message, and he told me, no, I had to wait and finish registering when I got my letter. Hoo boy.
That’s nuts. Voice recognition? For what practical purpose?
Only an hour? Not three? You were lucky!
Perhaps to avoid those tedious canned questions like, What color house were you raised in? Otherwise, perhaps when they intercept a phone call to know if it’s you or someone else.