My Mother's Tax Return
Since my father passed away
four years ago, I've been helping my mother to do her tax returns. She does not
pay federal taxes as her income is too low but she is required to pay Michigan
state income tax and property taxes. Every year she gets a tax refund of
several hundred dollars. As someone on a fixed income, that's important.
We filed her taxes early in
February and waited. In the past her refund has come usually within a month,
certainly within two months. When after two months, so refund check had been
directly deposited into her account. I began to worry. Still, she hadn't been
contacted to say there was a problem or that I'd done something incorrectly. So
we waited another month.
It's now May, three months
later with no refund and no contact. Time to investigate. I started by doing
what government bureaucracies always tell citizens to do when they have
problems. Don't contact them directly. Go on-line where the State of Michigan
says there is a wealth of information to help you out as well as a way to
inquire about your tax refund. I inquired about the refund
on-line and instantly got the response that they couldn't find the return in
their files. Wonderful.
Next step was to call the
tax assistance line where, they claim, you can speak to a live representative.
And here is where the quest becomes a descent into hell. Actually, I think it's
probably easier to call hell and get the devil on the phone. And he'd probably
be more helpful too.
The first couple times I
called, the line was busy. Finally I got through and got their automatic menu.
In a very slow-talking voice, the recording asked me to enter the year of the
tax return, the adjusted gross income, my mother's social security number and a
couple other details. I was then told that the return is under review with a
completion date of April 16. That was over a month ago.
Now it said if I needed to
talk to a live representative to a key on the keypad. I did that and was
immediately told that all the representatives were busy helping other callers.
Bye. End of transmission.
So I called another day. In
order to even have the opportunity to even TRY to speak to a live person, you
have to go through the same time-consuming routine of listening to the recorded
drawl, entering all the tax information, hearing that the tax return is still
stuck in time somewhere in the middle of April, then waiting to hear if there's
a representative who can explain when Back to the Future's Michael J. Fox can
go back to April to retrieve my mother's tax return. And again hearing that all
representatives are too busy.
This exercise in futility
repeated itself many times. To use another movie allusion, I felt like Bill
Murray in Groundhog Day.
Finally, I heard a recording
that indicated that I would be able to speak to a live person. Yea. My wait
would be 30 to 35 minutes. When I finally got on the line, I explained that I
was calling on behalf of my mother. I said how I did her tax return but it was
stuck in limbo, or perhaps even hell I thought again. He asked if I had power
of attorney over my mother's affairs. No. I don't think you need power of
attorney to help someone fill out a tax form. I'm pretty sure Turbo Tax doesn't
come with power of attorney. Was my name on the return? No, as I'm not a paid
preparer. I'm just a family volunteer helping my mother navigate the 70-page
Michigan tax return and fill out the ten pages necessary to get my 93-year-old
mother the money she is owed.
Well, then he can't tell me
anything. Not without my mother's permission. What? Do I need to bring a
written note from my mother to Lansing? He suggested I could include her on a
conference call. Seriously? My mother doesn't have a computer let alone a cell
phone or anything else that would get the three of us on the same telephone
line. As long as he's suggesting the impossible, why don't we include my
deceased father on the same conference call so we can have his input as
well.
But, hey! I had an idea. I
was calling on my wife's cell phone. I could call my mother right then as we
had a land-line and she could verbally give me permission to discuss her
return. At first, the thought that would be okay, but then he added that she
would need to recall details from her return, as in what was her adjusted gross
income. Oh yeah. Every 93-year-old elderly senior has probably memorized every
detail on their 10-page return. That wasn't going to work. Bottom line. I
couldn't find out why my mother's tax return was stuck in the past.
So I passed the baton to my
sister who, unlike me, lives close to my mother and could call from her house.
But I had the copy of the tax return in question so I gave her the adjusted
gross income and whatever other pertinent details the tax representative might
ask about. With my mother at her side, my sister went through all the same
motions I did to get a representative on the phone. It took over an hour of
waiting and when she finally got a live person on the phone, it DID turn out to
be the representative from hell.
She refused to talk to my
sister at all despite my mother being right there. When my mother finally got
on the line, my mother gave her name and social security number to verify her
identity. Then the representative began asking her detailed questions about her
tax return, Was she single or head of household? My mother correctly guessed
single though she didn't know what the difference would be.
Then the representative
asked what my mother later recalled was her "gross national income."
Of course, she didn't know that off the top of her head, and asked my sister
who was right there to give her that information. That was a mortal sin in the
eyes of the devil, er, the representative of our Michigan state government. And
she hung up on my poor mother and sister.
So my mother's tax return
and refund remains in limbo. And I'm very upset. I really would like to tell
somebody off. Hey. I have an idea. I think I could do a decent impression of a
93-year-old woman. I could call that tax hotline and pretend to be my mother. I
could really give them the business. "Tell your crooked friend down in
Lansing that they've held on to my money long enough. If I don't see that money
in the bank very soon I'm going to come there and raise some hell, the same
kind you people have been putting me and my family through."
posted by Big Dave T @ 3:16 PM
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