IRS Update

I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat about our IRS debacle. Do you remember what I’m talking about?

Recap: http://parentingbuildscharacter.blogspot.com/2012/02/when-life-makes-you-cuss.html

Well as I ended my post, I knew it was going to work out, but I just didn’t know how it was going to work out. Which has turned out to be very true.

It started with lots of phone calls and letters to the IRS. Then some research and speaking with an attorney. And what is boiled down to was that our accountant was at fault, there is nothing we could do about it, and so we did indeed owe the IRS a million dollars. Ok, so really it was like $11,000 but it felt like a million dollars! Our accountant did write a letter on our behalf, explaining how it was his fault, and asking them to remove certain fees and penalties so it ended up that we “only” owed $8,993.91. Only.

Believe it or not, by this point, I think mostly because of the long, drawn out process, I was totally ok with it by this point. I knew I had explored every possibility and I now understood, although not fair, that we did indeed owe that money even though we did indeed qualify for the housing credit, fair and square. Honestly, I think it was just another one of the Lord’s works in my heart—by the time it was time, I was ready to sign the papers and accept the bill.

Chad on the other hand, not so much. His blood never boiled during the first many rounds of back and forth with the IRS- he never got mad at their answers, or felt the need for any deep research. So by the time I had reached the point of a “ok, whatever is Caeser’s, I will give to Caesar” attitude, Chad changed places with me- all of a sudden, it seemed to hit him that this wasn’t going away, and it was an outrage, causing him to throw the temper tantrum and go into denial and scream and shout like I did back when this all started.

And then one day, he came home while I was in the midst of getting the boys into pj’s and he nonchalantly said “I’ve got good news.”

You’re guessing that he conquered the IRS, right? Wrong! Instead, out of nowhere, for no reason except kindness and love and generosity, with no strings attached, Chad’s parents called him while he was working and offered to foot the bill for us.

Seriously.

Did you read that? They just sent us a cashier’s check for the total!

So we signed the form and sent it back to the IRS and waited for a bill. We got it, paid it, and it’s behind us now.

NOT!!!!! Because nothing with the IRS works like that. Instead, while we waited for the bill from them, we managed to accrue a beaucoup of interest and more penalties. Seriously. And after another several rounds of calls and letters, I have no idea if we’ve even gotten anywhere and I just get transferred from department to department. And I think that the IRS are some of Satan’s pawns just trying to cause me to lose my religion and go all crazy and mangle people. I honestly don’t know where we are at this point- I’ve sent the $8993.91 and they’ve cashed it. And I’ve sent several strongly worded letters after speaking to every department possible over the course of 746433 hours on the phone with them. But as far as I’m concerned it’s over. And really, it was just a good process for my heart to walk through—getting a big unexpected bill, grasping as our money like it was ours, God moving my heart and opening my hands and releasing control and money, and then to be overwhelmed by the unexpected generosity of Chad’s parents.

Needless to say, we are so grateful and we have learned so much. But if anything like this every happens again, I may run for the boarder and never look back ☺ Kidding… kinda… mainly because they don’t have Chick-fil-A over the boarder!