<p>Came home from a fun Halloween to find a letter from the IRS. They claim that they can’t send me my (sizable) 2007 refund because I never filed a return for 2002.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the fact that I DID file a return for 2002, I got refunds without any problem in tax years 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006.</p>
<p>I was 28 years old in 2003. Supposing that they lost my 2002 return somehow, shouldn’t it have raised an eyebrow or two that a 28-year-old person earned $50k and paid a year of mortgage interest and property taxes without filing a return the previous year? Did they think I was living on the streets in 2002?</p>
<p>I feel for you - I am still waiting on resolution of the demands starting back in May for unpaid taxes plus penalties and fees amounting to almost $3000 - for my daughters for 2007 on her massive earnings of just over $5000. Pretty high tax rate!</p>
<p>I have been really frustrated dealing with this as for months we would write letters and send supporting documentation and in return we would get monthly demands with more penalties and interest. We finally heard back after months of letter writing that they are investigating. If we had not we were about to go with a taxpayers advocate (and may still have to). We had talked on the phone with the one on our State and they were helpful and sympathetic. If you cannot get this sorted out the link to the IRS site that will list the advocate in your State is here
[Contact</a> the Taxpayer Advocate Service!](<a href=“http://www.irs.gov/advocate/article/0,,id=97402,00.html]Contact”>http://www.irs.gov/advocate/article/0,,id=97402,00.html)</p>
You’d be surprised how many people just don’t get around to filing, no matter how much they make. The IRS knows who should file based on the W-2’s and 1099’s they receive. They just don’t know exactly how much they should owe (or get back) because they don’t have the rest of the info. </p>
<p>Just send in a copy of your 2002 return and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Did you get a refund in 2002 and keep the stub that comes with the check? If so, send them a copy of that (along with a copy of the return) and that should do it. We had the same problem, but with our state. They said we didn’t file a return for one year. I sent them a copy of the refund stub they sent us and a copy of the return and we never heard another word.</p>
<p>We have our refunds deposited directly into our checking accounts. Hmm…</p>
<p>We file our returns electronically and do receive an “electronic postmark.” When we used to file paper returns, I always had a proof of date of mailing slip. </p>
<p>I feel for you…dealing with the IRS is frustrating!</p>
<p>In our case, we were not having them deposited electronically yet in 2002. However, now we do, but there is a notation on our bank statement when it is deposited that it is a tax refund from either the US treasury or the state. So I would think a copy of the bank statement showing that would suffice.</p>
<p>Dealing with the IRS can be agony…our business has been put to the test on more than one occasion/ Luckily, we have always had the documents to support us.</p>
<p>Just yesterday, I got a call from our accountant that the state send a notice that they never rec’s a tax payment from over 7 yrs ago. I have to obtain a copy of the check from our bank. Tricky little things they pull that can really make things complicated</p>
<p>I have my tax records going back to the 1970s. I got audited by the State recently. Turns out I owed them a bit from many years ago. I drove up because it’s really hard to compute penalties and interest. Suffice it to say that I paid more in tolls getting there than I did for the taxes. They don’t charge penalties and interest for trivial amounts of money.</p>
<p>Large and complex IT operations screw up. It’s not a question of IF but a question of how big they screw up.</p>
<p>The IRS lost our 1987 tax return 3 times, including the time my husband hand-carried it to their reception area on the first floor and got a receipt for it. They lost it between the first and 8th floors. Then they tried to garnish my wages, only to discover they owed US nearly $1800. The next year, we were subpoenaed for non-payment of local taxes, even though we had moved to the state on 12/31/87, arriving at 6 p.m. Did they assume we’d begun jobs with only 6 hours left in the year?!?!</p>
<p>Lesson learned years ago when they changed the rules retroactively on investments (another thing you gotta love)- after getting the notice wait to pay until you have the final number- they pay less interest on extra money received than on money owed. Also-one year both the IRS and our bank didn’t read the written amount which clarified the number paid- H used a slash that looked like a 1, not a decimal point, to separate dollars and cents- of course we didn’t have THAT much money in our checking account I got the scary phone call from our bank and had to tell them to read the whole check (isn’t that why you have to write out the amount?)… Finally, we are waiting for the IRS to respond to our accountant’s explanation that last year’s investment taxes were paid in full- the IRS apparently looked at their copies of both the original and corrected 1090 forms covering most of our investments and wanted to double charge us.</p>
<p>PS- curm, I didn’t know you worked for the IRS…</p>
<p>I’ve only had one really bad experience with the IRS and that was when we owned a small business. The bank screwed up and deposited the money late (withholding taxes I think). We got threatening letter after threatening letter from the IRS, each letter escalating fines and penalties. We got nowhere with the regular phone number and I was losing a lot of sleep over it. I found out about the Problem Resolution Office and contacted them. The frequency of threatening letters slowed until they eventually stopped. It took several calls to get this resolved. But it shows how a minor screwup by a third party can make your life hell for a while.</p>
<p>Police Officers usually have to get tasered themselves in training to know what it’s like for the person that they shoot. What can we do with IRS employees? Or their computers?</p>
<p>Maybe that’s not the problem at all. Maybe we need massive tax simplification. I spend about 30 hours/year on taxes. My property taxes are simple. I get a bill and I pay it. My sales taxes are simple. The guy I buy something from collects it from me.</p>