How the IRS and The IRS Advocate Service is Completely Incompetent

English: Anti-United States Internal Revenue Service symbol. Commonly used by tax protesters and tax reform advocates in the United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The IRS can’t Tell If a Refund is a Fraud
It seems like the easiest thing to tell if someone filing a tax return has a basic understanding of the history of the returns filed for that tax payer. So when a return arrives with a fake W2 and no information that resembles anything that has ever been filed for a particular SSN, that return should be marked as Fake and not processed. Well that doesn’t happen.

I got a copy of a fake return that was filed and all I could do was laugh. The income was wrong, the deductions were wrong, the status was wrong, the exemptions were wrong. So the IRS believes that on December 31st of 2014 I got divorced, left my job, no longer had any kids, somehow disposed of 2 businesses without any tax implications, sold my house again with tax consequence, and took a job at half the income of my old job.

This is so basic. Start with the W2. If the W2 is new and there’s no W2 from the company that I worked for last year, then make sure the new w2 is real. If I had kids and now I don’t have kids, wait for my wife’s return to make sure she is now claiming them. If I had businesses and now I don’t, don’t accept the return until I prove that there was no tax liability to report. But instead they just process whatever lands on their desk and send out the checks. Filing US tax returns has to be the most lucrative income for everyone in the Ukraine that has a computer connection.
What if the bank deposit is going to a local bank that only operates in Texas and I live in Ohio. Might be a red flag.

Call Screeners Never Know Anything
So I spent all of 2015 calling the IRS. Everyone that answered was really nice and no one pleaded the fifth, although they probably should have.

Every month I would call and be told that my return was with another department and they had it on hold. Why was it on hold? Don’t know. Am I calling the right place? Oh yes. What should I do? Call back in 30 days.

One nice lady informed me that I had filed single last year. No I hadn’t! Oh wait that was the fraudulent return that you still think is real after 4 forms, 6 calls, and 8 months. Great.

Advocates Just Forward Your Call
Then there’s the awesome Tax Advocacy Service that the Congress established to help us out. The only good thing about this service is that the wait times are only an hour instead of the two hour wait times at the IRS. But then again, you still have to wait the additional two hours because all they do is transfer your call to the IRS.

Oh they are really nice. “And you should really work with the IRS because they aren’t incompetent like you say. Its OK that they gave your return money to someone in Texas that didn’t know anything about you, go head and chit chat with them for a little bit. Oh, they don’t want to protect your identity in 2015 either. That’s alright, they really like to help tax payers over there at the IRS. Hold why I transfer you.”

The IRS won’t Provide Protection After/Against Fraud
When December 2015 arrived I knew that I needed a PIN so that my return would not be stolen again (still waiting for that 2014 check…). But the IRS shuts down the site to request a PIN until the after the first week in January. That makes perfect sense, not! And why doesn’t the IRS have a 2nd shift to answer calls? Why doesn’t the IRS have weekend hours? Any business that wants to do things half right would have these services for costumers. I digress. Back to the story. This wasn’t going to be a personal story but I guess that is more interesting than bullet points.

The first day that the PIN service is available, I go to the site and the site tells me that I am not eligible. WHAT! I just had my return stolen.

By this time my father, who is a professional tax accountant has power of attorney on our 2014 return and is trying to clear it up. So he calls and asks why we cannot get a PIN. They actually tell him that we don’t need one. Because fraud is great and everyone loves fraud, so embrace the stealing.
Well this is total crap, so I call the IRS. They actually tell me that there is a limited number of PINs for identity theft and all of them have been given out already.

1. This is the first day the site is open for the new year.

2. PINs are numbers and there are enough numbers to give everyone in the world 100 million unique combinations.

3. I had my return stolen last year.

So the IRS gives me this awesome piece of advice since they just can’t generate one more PIN on the first day that PINs are available, file your return before the thief does. Seriously. That is the IRS anti-theft program. Have all the real tax filers, file their returns the first hour tax returns can be filed, even if all their tax forms have not arrive in the mail. Because if you wait until February 10th, like I did, then your new tax year is already stolen. And your refund money is off to Poland, or Texas, or the Ukraine for the next 14 months. And have a really nice day, thanks for calling the IRS.


Thus we upped our withholding from 5 exemptions to 7. At least the IRS won’t have a refund that they can hold for 14 months. Back to the phones. IRS, please change your on-hold music, it really sucks.