Thanks for Sharing

A couple of days ago I got the weirdest letter from the IRS.

Let me just say that the last couple of weeks--months, even--have been rather odd. Lots of activity, lots of things going on. Also, connections fraying. Lots of doors slamming shut in my face. While I firmly believe in closed door/open window and all that, a slamming-door time is still not exactly pleasant.

So on a slamming-door day, I also received a missive from the IRS. Ulp. My initial thought: "What ELSE??" I ranted on from there for awhile before calming down to read it.

The letter says that they can't process the amended return I submitted for my 2007 income tax because I amended something that I'm not allowed to amend.

And that's all it says.

There's no bill. There's no "Please respond with an X within Y days or we'll Z." Nothing.

Now, I have watched enough Oprah to know that when a real-live person says "I have a problem," the appropriate response from me is, "Wow, sounds like you have a problem." If I like the person, I can expand on this: "What's your plan?" or "How do you feel about it?" or "Thanks for sharing." The main thing is, this person has a problem and fixing it is her job. Not mine.

I don't even have to say, "What would you like me to do?" unless I really really want to. Of course, the person can ask me for help, and that's a different situation. But until I'm asked for specific help, I don't have to offer any. In fact, it's often best to not offer solutions. For one thing, the person may have excellent ideas of her own and just need to tell me about the problem. And for another, I really can't read minds, so figuring out what she needs is problematic at best.

I understand that the IRS is not a real person. However, it seems as if the IRS has a problem, and I don't have an indication of what action they would like me to take.

So I sent BACK a letter explaining why I made the amendment I made (because the amended version accurately describes my situation here) and asked them to suggest actions I could take that would help them resolve their issue with processing my form.

Because I am in NO position to figure out what the IRS needs. In fact, that's how this tax form became problematic in the first place--I had a particularly strange year in 2007 and could not figure out how to fill out the forms. And that was with instructions.

So now, I'm just waiting to find out how I can help out the IRS. In the meantime, IRS, thanks for sharing.