Pages

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

You've Got Mail

Do you ever get all school girl giddy when you go to check the mailbox? Like ooohh what if today someone randomly decides to mail me a card or better yet a present? Well maybe I was once that girl, but not anymore my friends. That was before the days of bills, bills, bills and junk mail. Skye loves to check the mail. He gets all excited if anything comes with his name on it. Even if it’s a random coupon or some bullshit junk mail about filling out surveys for a living. He eats it up like candy. I try to remind him that is because most of the bills that come are addressed to me (or addressed to both of us with my name listed first), but no bueno. Then I insist on trying to burst his bubble by telling him that that a good chunk of our bills come via email – to my email since I’m the bill-payer on staff. He’s also a little federal offender who likes to open my mail if it seems “exciting”. I can assure you that I rarely get exciting mail – the occasional package will come, or a wedding invitation, but that’s about the extent of it.

You are probably thinking to yourself right now, why in the world is she blabbing on about snail mail – which is practically an extinct form of communication? Well that’s because I got an “interesting” little envelope in the mail a couple weeks ago. Skye brought it to me, like it was a prize. But it was thick and it was from the IRS. That's not my idea of a prize package! And I was scared to even open the damn thing! I guess I thought I would be put in jail immediately upon opening. For what, I couldn't tell you. I really only associate myself with the IRS one time a year, and that’s tax time. The letter proceeded to tell me that I owe them $200 some odd dollars from a discrepancy last year in my tax return. Really? I filed my taxes in February last year and you’re waiting until January to tell me this nonsense? Apparently, my return was audited. I looked it up online – because the Internet knows everything- and I found that only 1% of people who make under $250,000 a year have their returns audited. Lucky me! (I know you are probably shocked to learn that I’m not a quarter of a millionaire like you thought I was.)

Okay so no big deal right? I was audited and now I have to pay them what I owe…but wait there’s more. This so-called discrepancy, I’m not even sure it’s correct. It says I failed to claim some amount of income from some educational place that I’m not sure I even know what it is. What is that like student loans? Well trust me, I don’t get any income from my student loans – just lots of output on that front. I don’t even know if this is real or something I should be worried about…and it’s driving me nuts. I am preparing to file my taxes for this year now and I feel like this letter is holding impending doom over my head or something. So if you were me, and you were confused by all of these shenanigans – what would you do? Part of me wants to just go ahead and do what is asked of me. Part of me wants to attempt to get an actual person on the phone to confirm this, or get more information. I’ve never had any experience dealing with this so I’m not sure what I should do! Any accounting friends out there? Help me!

7 comments:

heidikins said...

I'd talk to an accountant if you are unsure. Not an HR Block or TurboTax accountant, but an honest-to-goodness CPA. They will be able to ascertain if it's legit and help you figure out how to fix it if you really owe the IRS money.

My former roommate was an accountant and she practically drilled it into my head that I should not try and tackle the IRS on my own. Wise woman, that one. ;)

Good luck!
xox

Cami said...

Sadly, I'm not an accountant or else I'd help you. Hope you're able to find someone!!! Good luck. I'd be freaking out!

<3-Cami from First Day of My Life

Liz said...

I'd definitely find out if it's legit first. I've seen so many letters posing as bills from seemingly legit companies that turn out to be fraud. Be 100% sure it's the IRS that is asking this of you, then make sure that their "discrepancy" is correct.

Such shady scams going on out there. Hate to see you pay $200 for one of them!

Danna said...

I would call and find out. I'm not an accountant otherwise I would help ya, I hope things get figured out. So frustrating!

The Pink Growl said...

I'm glad that y'all think like I do - that's refreshing. My very first thought was that it was a scam, which I guess is negative, but you never know these days. I have a good friend that's a CPA so she's actually going to review the letter and help me do my taxes this weekend. Thanks for the advice!

Cally said...

I'm currently fighting with my student loan consolidation- Direct sent my payment to Sallie Mae, Sallie Mae still claims I owe them, but they sent "excess" money back to Direct loans! So why would they send money back and then try to take it from me? Your guess is as good as mine, and I was just going to ignore it and pay to be done with it. But I made about a gazillion calls and now it's at least "in review." We'll see how that goes.

I would definitely call someone. The IRS, an accountant, someone. Raise hell. Make them prove it. Don't pay it until you understand it.

Sarah P said...

UGH I hate mail from the IRS. I'm self-employed so I get a lot. Who did your taxes last year? If it was a service (like H&R Block or even Turbo Tax), call them first. They usually have a process in place for dealing with this kind of thing...some places even have a guarantee that your taxes will be correct. Anyway, if you did your own taxes, I would still call an accountant. I've learned the hard way that the IRS's version of "correct" and the rest of the world's version are different and an good accountant can usually straighten things out.