TAX TIME BLUES

I don't know who (or which) is more inept. My accountant - or the IRS. I sent the former all my tax information in early March of this year. For whatever reason (certainly not at my direction), he filed my taxes on July 13th, 4 months after I'd sent him what he needed. When he finally did, the IRS website was suffering a traffic jam. As a result, I received an email from him when I arrived home from work on the 13th, instructing me to file my taxes old school - via the US mail!

This circumstance presumed that I have a printer, a big envelope, and the time to go to the post office and wait on line to get the proper postage. Fortunately, I had all three covered and within 2 hours, had mailed all the relevant materials to the IRS (no fewer than 17 pages I might add). I emailed my dissatisfaction to the accountant without mentioning that I was aware that this glitch had something to do with his very late submission of my tax information.

Then two days after sending in my forms, I realized that my accountant had missed an obvious deduction when doing my taxes (deducting my Medicare payments from my self employment income) causing me to wonder why I'm using this guy in the first place. When I emailed my discovery, the secretary said she'd forward the correspondence to the accountant for his edification. It is now more than a week later and I haven't heard anything. The error cost me less than his fee (which is considerable) - and he hasn't been paid yet. Thus, I'm in a favorable position here.

Moving on...two days ago I received a letter from the IRS telling me to either go online or call them to verify my identity. Call me crazy...but I can't see an identity thief stealing my information so he or she can pay my tax bill (which is what I'd done if somebody at the IRS checked my account). I mean...that's my kind of identity thief. If he wants to hack my ass to pay my bills, he has my blessing.

So I go online and encounter a from which requires a temporary pin I'd been sent 6 months ago. What the fuck? Miraculously, I find the pin on the letter I received. But the website says it's expired. The IRS will resend the pin via snail mail. I'll receive it within 10 - 15 days. The letter says I have 30 days to respond to the communication. And if I don't, the IRS may not be able to review my return. (How's about you return the money I just sent you?) And then to ice the cake, the robo answerer who responded when I called the phone line to verify my identity said something along the lines of "call tomorrow. We're overwhelmed currently." So now I wait for the pin and wonder "what would a less organized individual do in this case?" I shudder to think.

Whatever...in other news, after writing about my first amendment woes a couple of weeks ago, Michael Cohen was coincidentally deprived of his first amendment rights (as I had) and became front page news when he first, was thrown back in the slam, and second, released shortly thereafter upon the order of a judge who saw the imprisonment for what it was: an unattractive attempt to muzzle Cohen thereby depriving him of his right to free speech. 

I'm familiar (as written two weeks ago). But now that Cohen's situation has come to light, I scored a major gig with the Daily Beast sharing my similar circumstance. Here's the link. But there's a firewall around it. So if you don't subscribe to the website, you'll have to wait two days to read it. One disclaimer: It's edited and only partially resembles the piece as submitted. But the essentials remain the same. While some of the writing style isn't mine, the piece still makes the point articulately. So I'm good - and glad to be back in the fold.