Hubby and I (mostly Hubby—okay, all Hubby) made sure our 2023 taxes were filed well before the due date last spring. He is meticulous about saving and recording everything that could remotely affect our taxes. For years, he did all our taxes himself until a couple of years ago when a particularly significant event made him consult the advice of a CPA. Even then, he spent several days going through all our paperwork to input them into the file sent by the CPA.

While eagerly awaiting our refund of several thousand dollars, we received a letter from the IRS. Hubby no longer has to rush out to the mailbox to retrieve mail. Now, he checks online each day to see just exactly what we should be getting in the mail. (Me, I like to wait for the surprise.) We were understandably nervous a few weeks later when he noted we were receiving something from the IRS. The adrenaline that ratcheted up my heart rate subsided slightly when the letter informed us our refund was being “held up” while they reviewed our tax return. They explained, “We understand your tax refund is very important to you, and we’ll work to complete our review as quickly as possible. We could take up to 60 days to complete this review. Please don’t contact us prior to the 60 days since we won’t be able to provide you with any additional information.”

Okay, when my pulse returned to normal, I figured we could live with that. Until about 59 days later when we received another letter from the IRS saying the same thing. Great. Now we were back to waiting another 60 days. Since then, we’ve received two more of the same letters, and it’s almost time to file 2024 taxes.

At this point, I could go off on a tangent about how the IRS has held up our refund check for several months now when we needed a new roof on our house, a new roof on Older Son’s house, a new dryer, a gate put in our fence to accommodate the RV, several thousand dollars worth of work on Younger Son’s car, and a new car for me because Younger Son totaled my car while driving it to work when his was in the shop. (Okay, in Younger Son’s defense, someone rear-ended him, so he wasn’t at fault. It still didn’t do my car any good.) Oh, and the new A.C. unit for Older Son’s house. Still, the IRS is holding onto our several thousand-dollar refund. Not that it would have covered all those expenses, but a few thousand dollars would have come in handy in any or all of those situations, as our little money tree in the backyard is plucked clean. (I wish we’d have thought to plant two of them.)

Then, we received another letter from the IRS requesting documentation for our solar panels that we put on almost two years ago. Hubby dutifully assembled all the information and submitted it—about two months ago. We can only surmise that, for some reason, the IRS is holding up our 2023 refund for the solar panels from 2022. A week ago, we received yet another letter saying, “We’re waiting for your tax account information to be available on our computer system. Please allow an additional 60 days for us to obtain the information we need and let you know what action we’re taking.” WHAT? Why isn’t the information automatically available on the computer since it was submitted digitally? Do they need me to come to their office and type the information into their computer for them so it will be available?

The real kicker came with the statement, “If you have questions, you can call us toll-free at . . .” Because we’d been fearful of reaching out to the IRS over the past few months lest they label us as “pests who need to be audited,” we hadn’t tried to contact them. But enough is enough! So, Hubby called the number. Surprise, surprise, he got into an endless loop of useless information that basically instructed him to visit the website. The website gave him an endless loop of useless information that told him to call the toll-free number. He tried every way from Sunday to contact a living person, all with the same result—there apparently aren’t any live people who work at the IRS. Either that, or they’re all sitting in their offices laughing about how nobody can reach them.

Hubby finally googled “How to reach a real person at the IRS.” None of the information helped. He spent several hours trying to break the code with no success. To add insult to injury, if none of the useless options in the IRS’ automated system apply to you and you don’t press a button, the system hangs up on you. Pressing a button only directs you to another endless loop of useless information.
We give up. The IRS has won. Just don’t ask us to give them a performance review. (Like anyone will stop using their services if they get a poor rating.)