It's Over... We Think

Our saga started back in May, it was then that we got the first letter from the IRS saying that we owed them $$$$$$$ since they were not allowing our charitable contributions for the year 2005. I read the letter they said we could contend it by sending in documentation proving our contributions were legit, but they also recommended that we pay the back taxes and fines NOW so that we didn’t incur any more penalties and interest. OK, now does that sound stupid or what? There is no way I am sending anyone money that I know they don’t deserve. Not only did we have every one of the receipts we us a CPA to do our taxes just so that we don’t pay more than we need to in taxes each year.

I dutifully make copies of our receipts (again never send in the originals) and send them back to the appropriate address via a registered letter just so I know that they did receive them. I figured once they got the receipts that they would just close the case. We had everything documented down to the penny. No receipt – no deduction.

So then a couple of months go by and we get another letter. This time they accepted a few of our contributions but wanted more details. “Please pay us now and then send us any supporting documentation.” It was after this letter that we contacted our CPA. He agreed we had done the right thing the first time and he called them up and they said it was just the system and they hadn’t reviewed the information I had sent yet.

A month later we get another letter. “Please pay us now we still won’t allow all your contributions.” Another call to the IRS by our CPA and they tell us that we need to send in not only the receipts but all the cancelled checks.

Another couple of months go by and no word from them and then last week we get another letter. “We aren’t accepting your documentation, please pay us $$$$ now or accrue interest and penalties.” WHAT we did nothing wrong all of our contributions are legal and we have every piece of documentation to prove it. For a week our CPA tries to talk to a body and only gets voice mail and finally today he talks to a ‘lady’. She looks in our file and says “Oh, we closed that file just yesterday.” So why the letter last week? “That’s just the system.” When will we have a document saying that file is closed and we owe nothing? “The system will send that out in about 4 weeks.”

For tonight we are praising God that our little experience with the IRS is over and in 5 weeks if we don’t have a closing letter from them we will try and figure out what the system is up to now.