Linda Pursell | Eternal Internal Revenue Service?

Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
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As I listen to the issues being debated for our national budget I am very disappointed that the Republicans want to remove the additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service. Do these members of Congress ever try to call the IRS for help? Not as a congressional representative but as an average income tax filer? It’s a very long wait on hold and then you may, or may not, get satisfaction. 

I filed a simple amended tax return last April to add a 1098T for college tuition that came late. I purposely waited until after the regular filing deadline to send the amended return. An amended return cannot be e-filed and there is no option to have a direct deposit refund. The additional 1098T would result in an additional $700 refund. Seven months later we got a letter saying they were going to finally issue the refund check. Seven months! 

As it happened, the check was mailed at the same time as the letter and was stolen from the mailbox. Of course, we didn’t know the check was stolen so we waited eight weeks after the letter to call the IRS. Finally, after a lot of waiting on the phone and trouble, the representative agreed to put a refund trace on the check that would take six weeks. I didn’t write down the agent’s number, which was a mistake. Six weeks later I had to call the IRS again and they had no record of the refund trace! 

We again asked for a refund trace and this time it worked. The check had been stolen and signed by someone else. We have been contacted by the Bureau of Financial Service and have submitted additional forms. We are still waiting, a year later, for the $700. 

I have no idea why the Republicans don’t want to invest in the IRS. Everything I read says it is the only government department in the U.S. that makes money. As a middle-class taxpayer I am very frustrated with the current IRS service and know that additional funding is necessary. Our representatives in Congress would know it also if they had to deal with it as ordinary citizens! 

Linda Pursell 

Newhall 

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