Help me escape IRS refund purgatory! (1 Viewer)

[NutterButter]

Tax refund fraud is rampant. Over $20 Billion estimated this year. That's a lot of victims and a lot of stolen money.

The fact remains, investing to stop the problem is a lot better than shaking your head and saying "well it is what it is"...

Investing in software and people would be a lot cheaper than this growing problem. I'm done arguing this, it isn't even debatable.

BTW NutterButter, if the IRS wants to get in touch with you, they get in touch with you. 

Sure, if you owe them money.   They don't have the resources to track down millions of potential fraud victims.   They'll send you a letter and if the dress is incorrect and it goes to the person that committed the fraud, they ain't going to be following up.  Even in the case where you owe them money, it could be years before anything happens beyond automated mailings.  When I moved into my house, for about 3 years, I got notices from the irs for the previous owner saying he owed money.   I tried putting on the envelope that he didn't live here anymore.   They still kept coming.  Finally, I had to call them, wait on hold like a schmuck to finally get this resolved.   The answer is fairtax.  All this irs nonsense is a gigantic waste of tax dollars.   

 

[IMAX 3D]

I'll wait months for my refund, I don't care. The point is that I have no information about the status of my return and I can't get any info from the IRS. One post above did link to a helpful site that has suggestions for how to actually reach a human at the IRS and my call was promising but I still couldn't get through. That's the kind of FBG help I was looking for. I'll try again on Monday.

Pretty sure @shukeworks for the IRS in some capacity

may be worth dropping him a PM...I know he's pretty busy this time of year though

 

[eoMMan]

Let's do some math....

$9000 in a money market savings account getting 0.5% gets $45 annually.  2 months, which is what you are waiting, of this interest is $7.50. This is interest income you are losing with the IRS holding your money. It would be a much larger amount of money if you were going to apply the $9k to debt with higher interest rates (CC, mortgage, etc.)

You didn't want to spend the $15 or so on e-filing but you're okay with forgoing this income? Seems illogical. 

 

[DallasDMac]

I actually find it quite hilarious that the OP expects the IRS to be efficient. Do people honesty not even watch or read the news anymore? This whole topic of understaffing and long waits was given quite a bit of coverage during tax season. Not sure how it comes as a surprise to anyone.

 

[Jobber]

Not to alarm you, but if your refund is not in the where is my refund thingy, it could be possible someone filed a fraudulent return under your name already.

You need to suck it up and wait on hold for hours tomorrow and get to the bottom of this ASAP, good luck dude.

Turbo Tax is $40 with free Federal e-file. I get my money direct deposited usually in a week. Stop with paper filing.

My information was hacked from the IRS early last year, along with 200,000 other poor bastards. I have to file as early as possible, and use a special pin when filing. All to avoid someone snapping up my refund.

 

[pecorino]

Guess my point is not clear. It's not about the refund, it's not about the lost opportunity cost on my money, and I'm not arguing the merits of e-filing vs paper filing. All I am saying is that if they ask me to wait 3 weeks for a refund and wait 6 weeks to contact them, I can live with all of that. But to have a system where, after 12 weeks now, they can provide zero information about whether they have my return or not, and they are completely unreachable by phone, that's purgatory to me. I have zero recourse. As I wrote before, thanks to the poster who linked to a site that may connect me with a human on the phone. I am still working in that. Any other ideas for getting any info about my return would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tommyboy]

Guess my point is not clear. It's not about the refund, it's not about the lost opportunity cost on my money, and I'm not arguing the merits of e-filing vs paper filing. All I am saying is that if they ask me to wait 3 weeks for a refund and wait 6 weeks to contact them, I can live with all of that. But to have a system where, after 12 weeks now, they can provide zero information about whether they have my return or not, and they are completely unreachable by phone, that's purgatory to me. I have zero recourse. As I wrote before, thanks to the poster who linked to a site that may connect me with a human on the phone. I am still working in that. Any other ideas for getting any info about my return would be greatly appreciated.

contact a tax attorney or experienced CPA that's main business is Taxes and ask for advice.  Just be friendly, explain that you're at wits end and ask for a phone number or a contact person that you can reach that might be able to help you.

not knowing anyting is frustrating, i get it.   That's why i pay $1000 a year to have my taxes done for me.   They're so complicated now, i couldn't possibly do them myself and that $1000 per year is like insurance against fraud, audits, shenanigans by the IRS and a legal buffer between me and the gov't.

 

[pecorino]

I filed electronically and its been 12-14 weeks, and nothing. I had to call them. There was other issues, but thats a whole other story.

Try this link to get to a human .... I had to wait 30 mins

http://www.taxboard.com/forums/wapzyx.html

Thanks for the tip. Finally got through today after about an hour on hold. Turns out the very reason for my one-time refund triggers an automatic 14-week waiting period to get it. I still have a couple weeks to go but at least I know now that the IRS has been sitting on my paperwork since early April and it wasn't hijacked by some identity theft scumbag.