The government is giving a tax credit to those who adopt.
The tax credit is a lot of money, at least to us.
In order to get the tax credit you have to prove you adopted a child in the past year.
This means you need to give them proof. Proof is an adoption decree and receipts that prove you spent all the money you said you spent.
You'd think that would be simple.
Enter the IRS.
Here's what is happening with our tax credit and, from what I've read, many many adoptive couples tax credits.
We sent the required documents with our tax return.
A month later we got a letter saying that we are being audited (only for the adoption tax credit part) and could we please send proof of adoption plus receipts?
We got two of these letters, actually. One addressed to me and one to Zack.
A week or so later we got another letter saying that they checked everything, they found a mistake, they fixed the mistake (There was no mistake, btw. Their correction was the same as our original numbers.) and they would be sending us our tax return within 4 to 6 weeks.
Okay.
4 to 6 weeks later .....no tax return.
We called them and here's more or less how the conversation went:
Us: Why haven't we gotten our tax return?
Them: You need to send us proof of adoption and receipts.
Us: You told us we didn't need to do that.
Them: Oh, that wasn't us, that was a different department.
Us: ?????
Us: Why are there two different departments in the IRS sending out contradictory letters to people? Don't you guys communicate?
Them: ?????
Us: We already sent in proof with our tax return. Why do we have to send it again?
Them: When we send things to the auditing department we only send the return, not all your paperwork.
Us: Wh..Wh..Wh.. Why? Why? Why? Why? Never mind....
Trying to figure out why they do it this way makes my brain hurt.
So, now we have to resend our paperwork so the auditing department can verify it and decide if we really adopted Caleb in 2010.
Oh, I forgot the best part. A couple days ago we got a bill from the IRS for all the time they have (not) spent auditing us. Fortunately, the nice person we talked to on the phone told us it was coming and to disregard it. I only hope the bill came from her department.
Oh, Government, you always know the most efficient ways to do things. I can't wait until you are in charge of my health care.
5 comments:
What a pain. Having worked for the government in the past, I'm allowed to say what a mess it really is. Hope things get worked out soon. And yes, won't it be exciting when they are in charge of our health care. We are already feeling the sting of the new health care plan with our new insurance...not good. Just think of how wonderful Caleb is, it just might prevent you from trying to harm the government workers!
I've always said that if you're ever picked on and need to get back at the world then just join the IRS. It's full of people with 'little man syndrome' and personalities akin to 'man hater woman cops' (you know what I mean). Every time I talk to the IRS I say "are you Kidding me?!" at least a dozen times during the phone call. I was once sent to collections for a company that wasn't even mine. True story. And with the IRS, you're guilty until proven innocent, which makes it a WHOLE lot funner. And your last sentence sums my thoughts up rather nicely.
I failed to mention that the bill was for $2600. They were going to try and charge us $2600 for our papers to sit on a desk somewhere. It was basically a case of "unless you can prove that you aren't trying to scam us, you owe us a bunch of monay." Bleh.
UNBELIEVABLE! I hope we get a better update with the 'it is all cleared up and we got the tax credit' news soon!
your last sentence says it all!
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