In 2008, I was audited by the IRS. I remember getting the notification in the mail; my accountant at the time was in NYC, which I had left just a couple of years prior. She was recommended by a friend, and had promised when we first started working together that if I were ever audited she would be there, holding my hand through the entire experience. She was not. Subsequently, I fired her, because other than a paragraph of basic instructions and ‘good luck’, she did nothing, absolutely nothing to help. Buh-bye!
It was a mail audit, much better and easier than an in-person interview, also meaning it could be conducted via the US Mail or FAX, which I could send directly to the hardworking auditor in suburban D.C., Maryland or Virginia. I don’t remember where, exactly, and while I have the records, still, just thinking about that very adrenaline-ized experience makes me feel a tad queasy, so no, I’m not looking.
It was daunting. It as as if – to a few of those I mentioned it to – I had ebola. “No!!” they shrieked, as they physically distanced themselves from me. It was educational, in that way and others, fascinating, instructive. Turns out, I had overpaid in 2007, but no, you’re not getting that money back (it wasn’t much), and – after faxing them supporting documentation numbering over 400 pages, the IRS left me alone. Yay.
Y’see I sold an apartment – a co-op – in 2006 and then in 2007 and ’08 my income saw a very large drop from the filing for 2006 because, duh, I had sold a major asset, my former principal residence in NYC, but in subsequent years I had not. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward but for whatever reason it had been flagged. And, I determined after phone calls and lists of required documentation – as well as having had to go through a somewhat similar process when installing my mother in a nursing home – that I would kill ’em with an abundance of paperwork proving what, what, where and whatever. Take that, you anal-retentive fools!
The only issue (and it may have helped, even) was the fax machine I used, which kept being overwhelmed, and so I would start again 20 or 30 pages back just ‘to be sure you got it all’, with yet another cover letter letting them know, hi, it’s me, remember me, just finishing the rest of the 467 pages from where I believe it cut off, page 184!! Have great day! Thank you for all your hard work.
I might’ve even meant it. Grind it out. Thank goodness I keep my receipts. You should too, peeps.
Terry Pratchett: “Many phenomena -wars, plagues, sudden audits–have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man.”