Nina E. Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, describes the current problems at the IRS as the worst she’s ever seen. And she’s seen a lot.
What information can’t you get from the IRS? Consider its much advertised “Where’s My Refund?” app. That service can tell you that your return was received, or your refund was approved or that a refund has been sent. But it won’t tell you anything useful between the received and approved phase, Olson warns. It won’t, for example, tell you that your return was kicked out of normal processing for some discrepancy.
Why not send in a paper return with an explanation of why your numbers may be different than the ones the IRS has? “Who knows when a paper return is going to be processed?’’ she answers. And then, she adds, when it finally is processed, “probably what will happen is you'll get a math error adjustment eventually on the paper return, they won't have looked at your additional information you sent in, and you'll have to send it in again.
So who wants to hire a lawyer and go to court? You can file your suit in the U.S. Tax Court without a lawyer , and without paying any disputed amount first, answers Olson. And if you do file a suit, your case will get kicked to an appeals officer at the IRS. “Tax Court is actually one way to get to that live human being,’’ she explains.