Uncle Sam I Am…Concerned

Nothing more pleasing than arriving home to find a slip in your mailbox saying you’ve missed a certified mail letter. Is it a coincidence that the slip is peach, close to the color of pink? Its common that something that has been sent certified is bad news…at least more often than it is good news in my experience. Couple that with the fact that the sender is the IRS, and well that equates to a restless evening.

I’ve always been a law abiding, tax paying, citizen. Ok well, for the most part. What in the world could it be, I thought to myself? Having received the pretty little slip well past 5pm, I had to wait out the night wondering what was in that envelope. To quench my curiosity I did the single most stupid thing which was google “certified letter irs” and what I read put me in a state of fear that can be described as paralyzing.

Collection efforts not responded to, garnished wages, failure to respond. Of course what I came upon were websites of attorneys (no offense to my south florida friends) looking to scare the living bejesus out of me and run to them for rescue, an assured initial payment of $3k - $5k. Let’s wait and see what it is I thought to myself. Don’t be so quick to judge how the attorneys represent themselves because I might need their help. It's just that I know it's not gonna be cheap to hire representation for a tax issue. I'll pay for great representation, but not good or mediocre representation, and I don't know any attorneys specializing in tax law.

The truth was, there were a million reasons you could have received a certified letter from the IRS, but chances were it was not good news. I contemplated the fact that perhaps it was not as bad as I thought. But no, I’ve never been lucky.

So I laid in bed last night. Toss and turned not only at the disturbing sound of the wind, but also the unknown in what lay in that envelope on Center Ridge Road. How weird I thought. This little bugger is going to keep me up all night and the sucker is less than a mile from my home sitting in some bin among a deep abyss of letters. Hope the letters for others are all good news.

I do not owe the IRS. I am current on all my filings. I’ve always waited well into March to fill to be sure I account for all my 1099’s. I’ve not been divorced. I’ve not smuggled money. I do not have a Swiss bank account. I know my financial situation inside and out and I could not come up with anything that I might have overlooked. After filtering through my tax returns dating back to 1998 and coming up empty handed, I could only wonder…What could it be?

This morning, I was up early, 430am. Preparing my green tea, masking my face, reading the local newspaper, trying to go through my normal routine and distract myself from thinking about that envelope. I would know in less than 4 hours what it contained.

As I pulled into the parking lot of the USPS office, I thought to myself, how bad could it be? Why am I letting the government scare tactics dictate my mood? The rainy grey day matched my solemn mood.

I scurried into the post office, reminding myself that the unknown would be discovered in less than 5 minutes, which turned out to be 15 minutes…of course! I was greeted, if that is what you want to call it, by Donna. An obvious tenured Federal employee…chipper as can be (chuckle).

I handed her my ID and the slip and said,

“I missed a delivery”.

She got the envelope, came back to the counter.

I said to her, “I didn’t sleep a wink last night because of this little guy.”

She laughed. “People get these all the time. It can’t be that bad, because you don’t have to sign for it. If you have to sign for it, then you owe money.” Think she has seen a few of these in her day?

She continues, “I did not file for 2007 and I received a notice that I was overpaid. They make mistakes all the time.”

Thinking to myself, I know this, but I don’t want the effing hassle. I’d rather not spent one iota of time on the government making an error.

“Thanks, you made me feel better.” I responded. I continued, “I made the mistake of googling what it could be last night and outside of feeling like I needed to go hire an attorney right away, I read horror stories that would make fantastic films. Trying not to get to far ahead of myself, but I am always prepared, and am horrible at dealing with the unexpected – I blame my dad’s genes for that.”

“Honey,” she said. “I live the unexpected.” She gave a wide grin. This time she made me laugh.

“Good luck” Donna said as I walked away.

I delicately opened the envelope as I walked to my car.

Good Karma…Good Karma...Good Karma…I thought to myself.
….And there it was…. 22, yes, I will repeat 22 pages of paperwork, notifying me that my taxes from 2002 were off by $5.08. I am owed a refund from the government of $5.08 which they are unwilling to pay because it’s past a 3 year limit on finding file errors. Oh, and if I want to appeal the decision, complete the paperwork and send it in, within the next 30 days. Congrats, time and money well spent. Somebody quick, call Obama and tell him the government is spending money frivolously.

I had to go back in and tell Donna, the USPS worker. Not only did I make her smile, but I made her down right laugh out loud…and a smoker’s laugh to boot. It couldn’t be more perfectly fitting.

“I told you,” she exclaimed.

“Yes, indeed Donna. Your words of encouragement were in fact, dead on!” I replied.

I continued, “I’d buy you lunch, but I don’t have 5 bucks on me.”