Remember those enormous checks we sent into the IRS year after year? Huge, debilitating checks that provided funds for our government that they continue to use up trying to fight the cold war. With fleets of nuclear subs and gaggles of unstealthy stealth fighter jets. The checks my government is using so my "president" can play golf more frequently than Arnold Palmer and Ben Crenshaw's life time rounds combined. Checks used to pay for all sorts of misguided nonsense!
I never complained until today. this was the day I decided to look and see where my Crisis/Disaster/End of the World check for $2,400 was hiding... (well, not actually a check but hopefully a direct deposit...).
Apparently IRS widget made expressly for this kind of information has been crashing non-stop since early this morning. Par for the course. I'll try a nine iron...
But here's the insight I gained today.... All the government reports about the one time "relief" payment suggest that if you have filed your 2018 and 2019 tax returns, and have given the IRS your bank information to complete those returns, you need do nothing more and as quickly as you can putt a six incher you'd have the cash in your accounts. Hole in one. It's supposed to be....automatic.
But here's the rub that I've discovered. If you've never gotten a refund from the IRS and all the money has flowed in one direction (to them) they won't/can't use the banking information you gave them for your payments to them to get this one time payment into your account. Even if it's the same account. No. You have to go online and give them your banking information for this payment all over again.
And the only way to do so it through the new site widget. Which is broken. But otherwise you can wait with all the other folks for a check to hit your mail box in August --- if we decide to continue the national postal service. Enter information into the site! But the site is broken. It's like being in an endless sand trap with no wedges, only woods.
Who actually gets refunds? I've never gotten a refund. I wouldn't know what they look like. Apparently we're one of the few households where the IRS money only flows in one direction.
If I sound angry it's because all of this is such a waste of time and energy. And it's not a service my CPA or attorney is offering to do for me.
But this particular rant is mostly intended as a public service announcement to our readers: If you pay taxes with direct EFTs (electronic fund transfers) from your bank account don't depend on the IRS reciprocating automatically and depositing your money there. You must give them your account information to get money back from them.
But there's this Nigerian man who offered to help if I could just send him all my banking information.....
