D is for...

D is for DELAYS! and DIATRIBES!  **ANGRY RANT WARNING**  **ANGRY RANT AHEAD**  In case people haven't heard, John and I applied for the New Home Buyer Credit ... since we bought a new house and all that.  :)  Needless to say, dealing with the IRS has made me a HUGE proponent of small government!  I mean, these people take forever to get anything accomplished!  And I am not whining because da gub'ment aint givin' me my moneys... I am irate because the government organization says that it can accomplish X in given Y time, but then it fails.  Miserably.  Let me give you the timeline:

• June 11, 2009 - Bought House
• July 10 - Amended 2008 Tax return to get New Home Buyer Credit

                   Tax forms said wait "8-12 weeks" to get the credit
                   .... waited ....

• Oct 22 - called IRS hotline for the 2nd time to check on status

                   Was told the wait was now "14-16weeks"
                   Told to call back after Nov 13 (which would be 16 weeks since our submittal)

• Nov 20 - The IRS wrote us a letter...
• Dec 1 - The IRS put that letter in the mail and we received it on Dec 3 (really? how does it take 10 days to put a piece of paper in an envelope and send it to the post office?)

                   The IRS requests documentation proving that we 1) bought the house and 2) it is our primary residence, but they only accept certain forms:  driver's license, car registration, bank statement, or paycheck.  Now, as the rude man on the hotline informed me, "Well, don't you want your W-2 to come to your new house?"  No, dipstick, I want it to go to my "old" address which remains our mailing address and is where we get all our important papers.  Same with the license and registration-- I paid $10 to get a new license and (drumroll, please) tada! the address that appears on your license is your mailing address, even though the online form delineates between "mailing" and "residence" addresses.  I paid money to get a card that looks exactly like my old one.  What a load of crap, DMV.  Then I called my employer, who is outsmarted by their own payroll computer system and can't print anything unless it's a paycheck.  No re-prints, no year-to-dates, nothing until the ONE time a month we get a paycheck.  All I have left is the bank statements, and I still have to wait until the end of the month for those to clear.  (sigh)  Why don't they ask for things that are TRULY based on your residence?  Like utility bills?  Or maybe your voter card?  No mailing address accepted on voter cards, and they can force people to register to vote... and don't you hear the government fussing all the time that no one is registered to vote?  Get two birds with one stone, IRS!
                   Needless to say, it was a long few weeks waiting for all my monthly statements to finalize and for us to gather the necessary documents to mail off.  (Did I mention that the man working the hotline was as spiteful and rude as I-can't-think-of-something-without-reverting-to-profanity? Yeeeeahhhhhh, he made the whole process really smooth and stress-free)

• Jan 1, 2010 - Mailed needed documents back to IRS within the 30day request 
• Jan 5 - IRS wrote us another letter....
• Jan 22 - We received that letter (Did you notice their mail system is getting slower?).  

                   Letter states that we have been rejected due to us not mailing the necessary documents, please mail back this form if you agree with this rejection.

• Jan 25 - Called IRS to question why we were rejected when we HAD mailed them the forms and to definitively state that we did NOT agree with the rejection.

                   Was informed by a much nicer hotline lady that ...(are you sitting down? you need to be sitting down for this)... that the IRS takes 45-60days to process incoming mail!  Did I hear that correctly? That means that my mail from Jan1 won't even be seen until after Valentine's Day?! Maybe not even until March1?!  This does not mean that it will be read and we will get a response, just that someone recognizes that we mailed something.  Sheesh!  I am glad to report that by this point, I was just "done."  No longer angry or upset, just tired of fighting and D.O.N.E.  So, I ask the lady what I can do.  She says to fax a letter stating why we reject their rejection... and for good measure I re-submitted the 15pages of documents just to prove my point.

• Feb 8 - IRS wrote letter: "Thank you for your correspondence, which was received 01/04/2010.  We will review your response and you should receive a reply from us in the next 30days.  If we are unable to complete our review of the information you sent within that time we will contact you again providing a date when to expect a response."

                   They wrote us a letter telling us to expect a letter within 30days... and if we don't get a letter, they will send a letter with the date of when they will mail a letter. As weird as that sounds, I do appreciate the communication.  I would be a stressful wreck if I had to wait this long with no word from them.

• Feb 16 - IRS wrote a letter: "We are reviewing your response dated 01/04/2010. You should receive a reply from us by 03/20/2010."  WOOHOO!

And that is where we are now... still waiting... We are at 32 weeks currently, on a process that was originally supposed to take 8-12 weeks.  And we still have 6 weeks to go.  (quiet sobbing to myself)  The real kicker came from a college friend who was visiting.  She and her husband bought a house the April before we did and they filed for the New Home Buyer Credit on their original 2008 taxes.  We were talking about it, and she very seriously tells me, "Oh, just be prepared to wait 12 weeks for the money."  Sigh.  I wish it only took 12 weeks.  I'm not sure if tons of people falsely amended their taxes just before we truthfully applied, and now the IRS is super-bogged down.... or if they just hate me.  :(