IRS so Incompetent they're Magical
Friday, August 3, 2007 at 03:20PM August 4, 2007
Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service
ACS Support – STOP 813G
PO Box 145566
Cincinnati, OH, 45250-5566
Dear Miraculous Givers of Life:
I just received another letter from you claiming that, “We’ve written you before asking you to contact us about your overdue taxes. You haven’t responded or paid the amounts you owe…We are authorized to collect overdue taxes by taking, which is called levying, property or rights to property and selling them if necessary.”
Thank you for the notice, but it is about time that I levy a stand.
I know that those of you at this IRS collections office are not as dumb as this letter makes you to be. Whether you like it or not, you are just like everyone else. You sleep, you eat, you drink, you’re bothered by how easily you get sucked into reality TV and sometimes, while blankly gazing into the dull glow of your computer monitor, you wonder what in the hell happened to your hopes and dreams. So I don’t blame any specific one of you for continually assaulting my dead mother. Something pops up on your screen and you go about defining your purpose on this planet. You hit a button and I get another threatening letter. More amazingly, though, is that for the first time since she died in September, 2005, I have reason to believe that despite the cancer and the crematorium, my mom might still be alive. Thank you! I never thought I could hope again.
But even more incredible is that despite computers, databases, magnetic recording tape and the internet, no one at the IRS seems to have logged any of my phone calls, letters or recently mailed death certificate. Here’s a brief record of my communication with you:
- April 2007 – I reply via phone to a notice just like this one. I explain my mom is dead and that any debts accrued during her married life were absolved in 2004 by the dissolution of said nuptials. I’m told someone will get back to me.
- May 2007 – No one gets back to me.
- June 2007 – I get another one of your letters threatening to take, which is called levying. I call again. I tell another person that my mom is dead and that you don’t even have her name right. She died a Dunning, not an Ewy. I offer to send paperwork proving this.
- June 2007 – I send a death certificate, official notarized marriage dissolution proving her legal emancipation of IRS debt, and proof of my being her personal representative.
- July 13, 2007 – Spend 2 hours at Social Security office to confirm that my mom is indeed dead. She is.
- July 15, 2007 – Get a call on my cell phone from IRS. I think it’s someone confirming they got the paperwork. NO. It’s Chris Blanchette #0801100 calling. She says, “I’m responding to a referral regarding Ann Ewy. I believe she called in April.” I doubt it. Chris is clueless but listens to me respond with a bit of fervor. I think she might have been a robot.
- July 30, 2007 – I get your latest letter. I have five others in my mom’s IRS file.
- August 1, 2007 – A huge bridge collapses in Minneapolis. Just in case you think it’s still 2003, at least we can compare major benchmarks.
- August 4, 2007 – NFL preseason begins. It’s been nearly 9 years since the Broncos last won the Superbowl.
So unlike your latest correspondence claims, I/we (together in spirit) have gotten back to you. You guys need to take a breather from the cubicles and go meet some of your coworkers in the break room. Or, I don’t know, engage in a plan that includes checking your mail. And if it’s a problem of people not taking messages when I call (that bugs me, too), I’m sending you this notepad that someone gave my wife at her baby shower.
I’m also sending along some of my mom’s ashes. If that still doesn’t convince you of her passing, well than at least you can interrogate her yourself.
All the Best,
Jared Ewy
Taxpayer
Englewood, CO
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