Penny Wise and Pound Foolish
Yesterday, I completed my taxes. Four sets (Federal, old State, new State, old city) worth of fun. I though April Fool's Day was an appropriate day for this task. I efiled the Federal form, but both my old and new States refuse to allow efiling for part-time residents (don't ask me the logic of this, I find it baffling). The forms for both States were fairly involved and the final letters required an extra stamp. The second stamp only needed to be 23 cents. Trying to save a few cents, I went to the post office last night to buy some postcard stamps. I put in 1.25 for a 5 pack (the smallest amount offered at my small post office) at the vending machine. The machine made the appropriate noise, but no stamps. I guessed (hoped) that the machine had only half-way released the stamps and the next person to select these stamps would get two packs. So I put in another 1.25 and tried again. Nothing.
So in trying to save 28 cents (37 cents for a normal stamp - 23 cents for the postcard stamp x 2), I had spent $2.50 and received no stamps. Wanting to mail the letters, I just used an extra normal stamp after all. I also wrote a note warning others not to use that machine. If time permits, I'll swing by the post office today and let them know they need to work on their machine.
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Let me understand: You put a stamp on your tax return and then drop it in the mail? You don't send it return-receipt requested?
What do you do when they claim you didn't file? Doesn't this happen to you regularly, or is that just me?
Heck, I sent one return in return receipt requested. Two years later I got a letter saying I hadn't filed that year (Federal) and I had incurred a penalty.
So I sent them a copy of the return-receipt showing the IRS had received it 2 years before AND sent them a copy of the cancelled check that had cleared 2 years before.
The IRS informed me that the return reciept only proved I had mailed them something, not that a tax return was actually in the envelope. They agreed they probably got the check, but maybe that was all that was in the envelope.
So I sent them a copy of the return (my spacious estate is filled mostly with boxes of old records) and a notarized statement that I had actually mailed this to them 2 years before and had not just mailed an envelope containing a check but nothing else.
That was 3 years ago and I haven't heard back from them, but I am not jumping to any conclusions.
(This year my main problem was a company in South Carolina I had never heard of who mailed the IRS a W-2 with my name and social security number on it, claiming they had paid me about $1500. Not a lot, just enough to mess things up. They don't claim that I actually worked for them on site. (They are an insurer). They just state they paid a claim for me to do some professional work somewhere for somebody they insured. So now I need to figure some way to prove all the people I did NOT work for last tax year).
This sort of thing happens to all the rest of you all the time too, right?