Valkyre's Weblog

IRS!!! Argh!!!!!

Okay, so I did our income taxes last month and sent them in. As I do every year, I asked that the refunds be directly deposited into our checking account. Two weeks ago, the state deposited our refund, $685.00, no problem. The Feds should deposit a refund of $480. Imagine my surprise this morning when I noticed that that IRS had deposited the amount of $30.00 into our checking account. What? Mike tried to find out what is going on through their web site. He can't get any information. He calls a 1-800 number that they provided on their web site. The voice on the line tells him for easier accessibility to his tax refund information, he can access their website. The website which just told him that his information was not available. After keying in his SSN, the refund

amount and some other nonsense, they tell us that my SSN does not match my name. *sigh* 16 years ago, when I got married, I never bothered to change my SSN. It is still in my maiden name. When we filed our first Income Tax Return in 1987, someone noticed that discrepancy and sent out a notice. On this notice, I swore under penalty of perjury, that that was my SSN and that I had not changed to my married name. This satisfied the IRS for 15 years. I was never hassled after that. Until this year...... Seems that they upgraded their software. And their new software caught it. So, since my married name did not match my maiden name on our return, they would not allow Mike to make the deduction for me. Which means a loss of $3000, which put us in another bracket and hence, a difference of $450. It has been corrected for this year. However, the guy from the IRS connected Mike to the Social Security Administration to add my name to the "Name Control". A woman from SSA answers the phone, Mike explains to her what happened. She starts to tell him that I have to go apply for a Social Security card. "But she has a Social Security number already!" She asks to talk to me. Now, instead of just adding my name to the card, I have to take my marriage certificate and various forms of ID down to the local Social Security office and get it changed. Which, I should have done a long time ago. But, I had never been challenged before. I have opened bank accounts, filled out forms, etc. with that SSN under my maiden name and no one has ever challenged me. Except the IRS's new software. And why can't they just look at our history and see that this has been going on for 15+ years without a hassle! Argh! Anyway, our return has been amended. We will get the full amount. I will go down and get my SSN changed to my married name so we do not go through this again next year.