Thursday, July 31, 2008

No Sense of Humor at the IRS

Me, waiting on hold for an IRS employee on the phone:



The worst part was that the music playing was about 5 times too loud and they only had two songs, a Nutcracker thing and some other famous classical piece that I can't think of the name now because my brain has atrophied in my now bare skull. ;-)

When finally a lady spoke to me I tried my vicious momma best to be light and funny about why I was calling, but perhaps all these IRS employees have already lost their humanity and are now humorless zombies or skeletons because she was as unmoved and as lively as a rock. And on top of that she had no answer for my question. Agh!!

By the way, the reason I was calling was because I wanted to see if they had received my second quarter 941 form which is a quarterly report of the payroll taxes that we have withheld and paid to Uncle Sam. I'm about 96% sure* I already mailed it at the middle of July (it's due by the 31st) because I think I remember thinking to myself, "I'm sending this early to get it over with, but I'll probably forget that I did it early because I'm in a hurry and haven't printed out a copy for myself." (I was trying to get everything done before leaving for our vacation.) The biggest clue that I most likely did actually mail it already is that the official envelope for mailing it is gone, and I am 99.5% sure that I did not misplace it.** Anyway, the phone call was no help because she said that it takes 6 to 8 weeks to process a form. ;-) We decided that I should probably go ahead and mail another one just to be sure, but Jesus Christ, why did I have to waste my life on the phone to hear what I already knew? Our tax dollars at work!


*That's not a too bad percentage but my memory just isn't what it used to be. And sometimes that 4% uncertainty is pretty significant. ;-)

**It occurred to me that I should probably explain the difference between the 96% and the 99.5%, although really, they aren't too dependent upon each other. In case it's not clear enough, the 96% is a more overall sense and the 99.5% pertains to only the presence of the envelope and is kind of included in the "calculations" that make the 96% total. Well, it might be better to completely ignore any of my attempts with numbers because the possibility of imprecision and errors is even higher than 96%. ;-)

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