{"id":353,"date":"2009-03-16T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=353"},"modified":"2009-03-16T04:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-16T08:30:00","slug":"the-infernal-revenue-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=353","title":{"rendered":"The Infernal Revenue Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yep, that’s the name of the U.S. Government agency that is responsible for federal income tax, business tax, and whatever-else-they-tax. Lately, the thing that this agency has been taxing me most on is my patience.<\/p>\n

I have completed 49 individual federal tax returns for senior buds over the last six weeks or so. I have even filed my own and received a small but appreciated refund. I prepared all of these filings electronically using software I purchased for that purpose.<\/p>\n

Now that all the individual returns are done, I am focusing my sights on returns that I file for not-for-profit organizations on whose Boards I serve — and who look to me to file those tax returns. I also file returns for small businesses that I own and operate with my partner.<\/p>\n

That’s where the IRS becomes “infernal.” They have mailed me only one form for one organization, but I need five for five separate organizations. I also need forms for the small businesses. Okay, so I go to their website to download the forms. When you visit the website, you have to surf all over the place to find the forms (fortunately, their search feature worked pretty well.)<\/p>\n

When I clicked on the forms I wanted, only one of them would work. Two produced an error message saying that the on-line version of the form was corrupted and “could not be repaired.” ummm… have you ever tried to find where to report such a problem on a huge government agency’s website? I found the on-line form, and explained the problem. I have to credit them — they responded within an hour. They sent a “stock answer” that they must have cut-and-pasted from a reference library, saying that I needed to use the most current version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Well, I am using the latest version, and told them so. Doesn’t matter, they have done their duty by responding, regardless if it indicates that they really didn’t read what I wrote.<\/p>\n

I then opted to call on the phone to request that the forms be mailed to me. The forms are not due for another month, so I have time.<\/p>\n

Their phone system is one of those super-annoying “press-or-say this-for-that” type of thing, with instructions repeated in Spanish if you don’t respond quickly enough. 16 menu options later, the line went dead. Arrggghhh!<\/p>\n

Another 16 menu options later, instead of losing the connection, I heard a short burst of tones, which I presume was a transfer to a live human being. After a pleasant music-on-hold 20-minute wait, I reached an operator and relayed my request. She was very helpful and courteous. It was the automated systems that were less so.<\/p>\n

Oh well, such is life with big bureaucracy. I’m sure I am not the only one trying to call the IRS these days.
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Yep, that’s the name of the U.S. Government agency that is responsible for federal income tax, business tax, and whatever-else-they-tax. Lately, the thing that this agency has been taxing me most on is my patience. I have completed 49 individual … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}