2009 tax season from hell

I feel the need to comment and bitch about how horrible my 2009 taxes were. If I had been able to use Turbotax like a normal person, I think I would have only had to pay the basic price of 70$ or so, but no, of course my taxes have to be completely complicated and retarded. Let me first start off by saying that instead of receiving six W-2's like I was suppose to, one decided not to come in the mail. Me, being the meticulous person that I am, decided to try and track down the missing W-2 so as not to get audited again (yep, in 2006 I was audited and let me tell you, it's not fun, it's costly, and really freaking annoying to deal with the paperwork and evil IRS. When they want their money, they get nasty. Anyhow...) by calling my Employer who gave me a phone number for the accounting firm and told me to call them. I called the firm, which lead me to a generic voicemail box after zero telephone rings - almost as if the number didn't exist. After two days of hearing nothing back from the accounting firm, I decided to drive by the offices (they were only a couple of miles away from my home). I had also called my Employer again to see if they had another phone number, but no, just the one.

After I pulled up to the firm's office, I knocked a few times, gaining no response, and then snooped around the perimeter to see if I could find anyone to talk to. Like a Peeping Tom, I looked through the windows and discovered that, aside from bad furniture taste, no one was home and maybe hadn't been for a while. There was a twin building next door with a "for lease" sign staked out front. I figured, "what the hell, I'll just call and see if it's for both buildings." Why did I have to be so thorough? The leasing Realtors (after figuring out I didn't want to buy the buildings) told me that the accounting firm packed up and left with no forwarding address or phone. They were in the wind, evil bastards. What I really want to know is if they were doing something illegal and when my Employer caught hold of it, they skipped town. It seems rather strange of them to not send out W-2 and then vanish. But who knows, speculation will get you nowhere.

The next thing I tried was to contact my employer and the IRS to ask what I could do about a missing W-2. The IRS, surprisingly, is quite apt at answering phones and people's questions in a timely and professional manner. They essentially said I had to fill out a substitute W-2 using my last pay stub. Luckily I had my last pay stub. So, herein lies all my problems (well, besides the missing W-2 and the sketchy accounting firm), the pay stub I used for my sub W-2 was not well liked by Turbo tax and therefore a troublemaker. Turbo tax told me that too much money was withheld from my social security wages and that I needed to contact the accounting firm to give me back the over drafted money and a new "corrected W-2" before I could continue and complete my tax forms. Hum, you think Turbo tax? Slight problem...it's a "substitute W-2" because the evil accounting firm didn't send me a real W-2 since they "supposedly vanished off the face of the planet" and now, apparently, they also stole money from me. Stupid, stupid automated program!

Anywho...I did a live chat/text thing with the Turbo tax people because when you call them it leads you to a retarded automated lady that is from a random and wrong tax department and hangs up on you if you don't give her the information she requires. You also have to fill out a survey to get the phone number in the first place. A complete waste of time and patience. So, the live chat dude says, "hi," to me and asks for all this personal info. I get a little freaked out that maybe he's a hacker and I don't know if he's who he says he is (it's been a long day and I was paranoid of everything), so I ask him to prove he's from Turbo tax and surprisingly he doesn't think I'm a freak (or at least doesn't IM back that I am) and proves he's who he says he is. I have to say, Turbo tax is a lovely program for people with normal taxes and their help is awesome. Too bad Mark, my Turbo Tax texting buddy, couldn't help me with my problem. He did however tell me to contact the IRS again to see if I'd properly fill out the sub W-2 form and to have a nice day.

The IRS, after transferring me to three people, told me to A.) fill out the Turbo tax form with what the IRS said was correct for the Social Security withholdings, but not what I had filled out on the sub W-2 with the information I had from my last pay stub (leading to my 2009 tax forms potentially being audited) or B.) Go to a tax professional and fill out a hard copy of the tax forms. I headed to H&R Block. On the phone they told me that normal people's taxes would cost about 50-100$ and that I would probably fall into the 150-180$ category. I figured that wasn't too high of a price to pay if everything was done correctly and they could just fix my stupid sub W-2 form problem. Plus a real person is better then automated people and machines.

At H&R Block I met with an extremely nice lady that sort of didn't understand my problem and after consulting the tax manual numerous times, started to type in a bunch of numbers on her computer into her tax program. Once her program excepted my janky substitute W-2 form with the wrong SS withhold amount, we went on to complete the rest of my taxes. We moved on to my list of deductions, which she ended up finding faults with and once, understanding why I had them, tried her best to find places to put them on the tax forms. After deductions, we discovered that not only did I have a messed up sub W-2 form, but one of my jobs put me down as working in North Carolina (which I had worked, but as a California resident, not a NC resident) therefore causing me to fill out more paperwork and make life difficult. This evil little addition of NC paperwork cost me 80$ and a headache. I don't even think my employer got a tax break from NC, so I don't know why they listed me as working there.

Finally, after we thought we'd filled everything out and printed up the materials to send out, my poor Tax lady discovered another 1099-G form for my Unemployment Insurance that got skipped. This in turn pretty much dropped me from getting a nice little sum of money refunded to barely skating by. It also fucked up the stupid NC state tax paper by deducting more money from my refund. I don't see how California unemployment insurance should reflect on NC, but somehow NC sees it as a valid way to swindle more money from me.

Once we triple checked that everything was completed correctly and with all parts, we went over the cost of H&R Block services and discovered they're sneaky little bastards that really know how to charge a pretty penny. Not only do you get charged per form you use, you get charged by the minute and per each time you access certain information. So in the end, my lovely taxes, that should have cost about 70$ on turbo tax ended up being 392$. I about had a shit fit. What the hell. I was gonna go to a friends tax person, but I didn't want to wait to see them and then I didn't figure that my taxes could possibly cost so much. I mean, whos taxes cost 400$ ever. My tax lady felt bad for me and gave me a 77$ off couple. Yeah, 315$, a steal!

So, at first I think I'm going to pay 150$ there abouts and then I think I'm gonna get a good amount of change refunded only to discover I get to pay a fortune to have a nominal fee refunded to me and I have to mail one of my forms in. Grrr, but as the Tax lady said, "at least we discovered the error now, otherwise you would have owned the IRS the incorrect refund amount". Yea, I guess there is a bright side.

All in all, I realize, a live tax person isn't necessarily better then Turbo tax if they don't understand entertainment deductions and when they forget W-2/1099G forms, but they are extremely nice to have in reaffirming that everything is completed correctly (after triple checking) and there to handle the IRS, if they decide to come knocking. 2009 taxes done, now on to 2010 taxes in 12 months using Turbo Tax.