Fun with the IRS!!

[GH85Carrera]

My mother in law died a few months ago at age 93.

My wife is the executor of the trust. She (Mrs. Carrera) has been dealing with various banks, a credit union, various investment firms, the CPA and so on for 4 months.

The trust is getting some small refund for taxes. My wife was on the phone once and the IRS just said we are busy, goodbye. She tried again the next day and it was a 40 minute hold before she talked to a human.

Bottom line, to file for the refund Mrs. Carrera had to go to the brick and mortar IRS office in Downtown Oklahoma City.

So I drove to downtown looking for the office. There is no address sign on the building, and no sign about the IRS. Fortunately my phone knew where it was. We then had to find a parking garage in the area. After going around several blocks, we found a public parking garage, and on the 5th floor finally found a spot to park.

We had to walk for 3 whole minutes to get the IRS office, and there stood a cop. I said "we are looking for the IRS" and he said you found it. Empty your pockets, and he scanned me with a metal detector and go check in. Mrs. Carrera did the sign in, and we had an appointment for 9:30. The check in lady was very pleasant and we sat until about 9:40.

Show the agent several pieces of paper, and my wife's driver's license. Lots of typing on the computer, a few questions, more papers, and she said all if filed. The refund check will be mailed in about 9 weeks!

And the good news is we may well have to do that again next year.

The IRS office was dead quiet, like a library. We were the only clients there. That chore is done. What a pain the posterior.

[Por_sha911]

"fun" and "I.R.S" cannot be used in the same sentence. Kind of like an oxymoron.

[Zeke]

Not completely sure, but many trusts have a bank account set up in the name of the trust and you might be able to supply the IRS with that info and have a direct deposit. In a sense, the more paper work on file the better. You might not have to do that next year.

IDK, but you may have gotten short changed on info. I added our trust to the bank account as a payee and payor w/o setting up a separate account. But that's different than your deal.

[GH85Carrera]

The IRS agent nodded as my wife said it had to be in person. And only a hopefully not next year, we maybe can do it via the mail.

[Sooner or later]

10 years or so ago the IRS double dipped my payment. I am not suremif it was my error or theirs. Instead of $11,000 or so they took it twice, $22,000.

Went to IRS office in town. Police on duty. I was the only one in the office."Take a number." 47. Thirty seconds later "47!"

I go to cubicle. Explain problem to agent girl. She calls up account.

"Yep", she says, "same withdrawal two times. Your account shows overpaid by $11,000"
"May I look?"
"Sure." She says.
"Great, what now?"
"I can't authorize a refund. I will assign you an advocate. "

About a week later advocate calls. He explains the process. I should see my refund in about two months. Over the next month or so the advocate calls a couple of times with updates.

Two months later check arrives. $11,000 plus interest. About 2% annualized

[Zeke]

There are only 200 IRS field offices. Pretty hard on those not living near a city with one. There are 20 in CA and 5 in MS. But OK has only 4 and 2 of them are Oklahoma City. The beotch would be in Alaska with one. That could be a 2 day trip for some.

[GH85Carrera]

Back about 15 years ago I was looking at my SS statement, and one entire year of income was missing. I called them and they had me fax over several pages of documents. A year goes by, and that year is still missing. Same thing, call and fax the same documents. A year goes by, not change. I called a third time, and the set me up with an appointment at the local SS office.

The waiting room was packed. Since I had an appointment, I was called in quickly. The first agent could see the issue but had no idea how to fix the problem. He called over the smart lady, and she looked at the issue for 20 seconds, typed in something on the computer, and said, sir the issue is fixed. Sure enough, it was! Less than a minute of time with the right agent, and all was fixed.

[Arizona_928]

I had a social security issue and went to the local office. Empty building as they're appointments only. I was turned away and told to make an appointment...

Riiight. Anyone been in the army and dealt with S1 knows the scam.

[E Sully]

My mother had a Trust, and that was not bad as far as obtaining an EIN, opening a bank account, and paying the Trust taxes till the assets were distributed.
After she passed to handle my mothers personal taxes I had to fill out a few IRS forms for deceased and go to surrogate court and fill out an application for permission to open a bank account and to do her taxes and distribute all the assets that were not in the Trust agreement. The surrogate court mailed letters to all my siblings notifying them. A precaution if any of them wanted to dispute me as Executor.
I will say, when I called the IRS it went fairly smoothly and the wait time was minimal. There was a small problem they told me they could not discuss over the phone and I made an in person reservation. Amazingly, they closed the local IRS office 3 miles down the road just before this, and I had to drive to one 20 miles away. I brought all my papers and POA, the agent looked things over, had me check a box and sign and all was done. There was a woman there with no appointment, but they took care of her after a small wait.
It may be that my issues were a few months after April 15th. I would think they would be swamped earlier in the year.

[oldE]

My wife is going through this right now with her mother's estate. A lot of the ground work was done years ago but she says every time she has dealt with a person on the phone or in person she has been gratified by their concern and helpfulness.

[GH85Carrera]

The biggest difficulty we had was the IRS office has no sign on the door of the building so it was had to find. And we had to park in a parking garage two blocks away. Finding the parking garage, and the IRS office was a challenge for us, as we don't go downtown very often.

Our Social Security office is in a building of it's own, a few miles away, and a nice free parking lot right there.

My goal is to never have to deal with either of them person to person ever again.