I prepare my tax return myself and I file it promptly.
As soon as I have all my 1099s (many) and W-2s (rare these days) I start plugging the numbers into TurboTax, the software I love to hate. It’s not terribly complicated though there are a lot of pieces, and the tax software does most of the math. I enjoy preparing my taxes and it rarely takes me more than an hour to do both the federal and the state. I don’t mind paying taxes. U.S. tax rates are among the lowest in the world and though I wish more of my money went to national parks and less to nuclear warheads and that the system didn’t favor the wealthy, I do my best to accurately pay every penny that I owe.
Because (you will be shocked to learn) I keep careful records throughout the year not only for my and my wife’s businesses but also for our household, I can tell you down to the penny our local taxes, charitable contributions, and IRA withdrawals to the penny. The numbers I need are all right at my fingertips.
We don’t have employers to withhold taxes throughout the year so I make estimated payments to the U.S. Treasury every quarter. Not wanting to be penalized or pay interest, I tend to overestimate the amount I need to pay. I know it is not good for the government to owe you money, lost interest, etc. but most years I find that Uncle Sam owes me $5,000 or more and Maryland maybe $2,000.
So, in late February when I determined that the U.S.A. owed the D.K.B.R. more than $7,000, I was excited to get it back!
I waited another week just to make sure everything was right. There was a lot to review!
Form 1040.
Schedules 1-3
Schedule B
2 X Schedule C (one for my wife’s business, one for mine),
Schedule SE,
Form 8889, and many more.
The PDF with my complete federal and state tax returns is 51 pages long and that is short compared with many past years.
Thankfully, one no longer has to print and mail the thing. Press one button and it’s on its way to Washington, D.C. and to Annapolis, Md. I also prepare my mom’s taxes and I filed them at the same time. By March 2, my returns were submitted.
With that taken care of, we set out on our trip to the Grand Canyon and points west.
Within days, my mom’s state and local refunds had arrived as did my Maryland refund. But the seven large from Uncle Sam was nowhere to be seen (or spent). In what is probably 20 years of filing electronically, this never happened to me. It is never been more than a few business days before my refund hits my account.
After a few weeks of no refund, I went to the website of the Internal Revenue Service. There you can plug in your filing status, Social Security number, and expected refund and it will tell you the status of your refund. The website simply said that my return had been received but that my refund had not been approved. No reason was given for the holdup.
So, I imagined some.
I imagined that some anomaly in my tax return had kicked it out of the computer into a massive pile that awaited human review in the woefully underfunded and understaffed IRS and then it had fallen behind a file cabinet.
I imagined they were holding onto my money in case the debt ceiling wasn’t raised.
I imagined that I had made a horrible mistake or that I would be audited and have to produce reams of documentation for every return submitted since 1979, the first year I filed.
I imagined going to jail.
But, as I reminded myself, I had done nothing wrong, certainly, not intentionally. So I decided to stop blaming myself and to blame Republicans instead.
The IRS tells you on their website not to call them about a refund. They won’t tell you anything over the phone, they say. If they want to communicate with you, they will send you a letter. But I was on the road and not getting mail. I tried calling once but it was not possible to reach a human being. The automated system just told me what I already knew. They received my return but hadn’t approved my refund.
I combed my copy of the tax return for errors, but I couldn’t find any.
When we arrived home in May, I anxiously awaited the next day when we could go to the post office and collect our held mail. I was certain that a letter from the IRS awaited me. Even though I was sure it would necessitate my traveling to an IRS office (I pictured walking into the massive IRS building on Constitution Avenue) with cartons of papers for the first meeting of what would, no doubt, be a year-long audit, at least I would know what was going on. Maybe I’d need to hire an accountant to accompany me. I don’t know any tax accountants.
Perhaps it goes without saying; there was no letter.
Throughout the following months, I continued to wonder and yes, worry, about the status of my return and my refund. I checked the IRS website at least once a week. Nothing changed. No letter arrived.
I considered my options. Send an inquiry to the Commissioner of the IRS? Write a letter to my representative, the Honorable Jamie Raskin? Write off the money as a lost cause? Or just do nothing and wait.
By default, the last option was the one I chose. I did nothing. I even stopped checking the IRS website.
I spoke with a friend who also does his own taxes. He said that something similar had happened to him once. Eventually, he got a reduced refund with a letter from the IRS explaining the mistake he had made. He found the letter incomprehensible and just accepted the reduced amount and went on with his life.
As the weeks turned to months, I began to believe that I would never hear anything at all. I started to forget about it.
Then yesterday, as I was updating Quicken a deposit from INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE appeared in my checking register. It was for the full amount. They paid me no interest and there was no explanation. It’s been five months since I filed. I had plans for how to spend the refund, but I have forgotten what they were.
Likely, I will never know why it took so long but perhaps there are lessons to be learned here.
One is to try and end the year owing the government a little rather then it owing you a lot but also:
Lessons about patience, about worrying about things you can’t control.
That sometimes the right choice is to do nothing.
To wait.
To allow things to happen in the fullness of time.
To accept that you will never know why.
The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.