Our tax return for ’12 was rejected. Someone else had already filed using my ssn. The IRS tells tax fraud victims to expect up to a 180 day wait for their refund. Well, guess what…we’re now closing in on 300 days. Many phone calls and always the same advice: call again in a month.
At this point, I have just two questions. Number one, is it possible that we’ll never get our refund and, number two, do our phone calls actually do any good or are they just a waste of time?
The Tax Forum's Response:
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I am very sorry to hear about your difficulties with the Internal Revenue Service. But I am not surprised. The IRS is understaffed and lacks sufficiently trained personnel, such as certified public accountants and tax attorneys, on its payroll.
I have known individuals who have waited over a year to straighten out a mess involving stolen social security numbers. But I know one thing for certain: if you do not keep pursuing your refund from the Internal Revenue Service, you may never get it!
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Who did your tax return for 2012? Did your tax preparer offer any advice upon your notification of a delay in your refund? Did your tax professional perhaps advise you to consider applying your refund to 2013 or underwithholding this year in an amount equal to your tax refund rather than to wait indefinitely for a possible refund?
There’s often more than one way to skin a cat. Talk to your tax advisor. And if your tax advisor does not help you, perhaps it's time to shop for another.
The Tax Forum
If and only to the extent that this publication contains contributions from tax professionals who are subject to the rules of professional conduct set forth in Circular 230, as promulgated by the United States Department of the Treasury, the publisher, on behalf of those contributors, hereby states that any U.S. federal tax advice that is contained in such contributions was not intended or written to be used by any taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer by the Internal Revenue Service, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer for such purpose. The above tax advice was written to support the promotion or marketing of the accounting practice of the publisher and any transaction described herein. The taxpayer recipients of this offering memorandum should seek tax advice based on their particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.
