My Mother's Tax Return

      Who really knows if there truly is a heaven or hell but if there is a hell, I'm convinced it's being run by the same people who set up and process our tax returns. Whenever I've had issues with tax returns, dealing with it is a descent into madness.     

     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."