esrosedotblog

FIRST INSTALLMENT

Yesterday the dam broke and we got our first refund from the IRS for the first year of our domestic partnership refiling. Under a new regulation or ruling, domestic partners (not married couples or the same gender) may file for community property in a "community property state" which California is. (A backward running sentence if I ever saw one).

This is very good news. They had been bombarding us with misinterpretations of the refilings for months including thinking that we owed them a lot, I mean a lot, more money.

Now, at least for one year, we are resolved.

We have the check.

Working with the IRS, as most people know, is very difficult.

I bet you got a knot in your stomach when you saw the logo over there. It is a nameless, faceless bureaucracy and almost all of its business is conducted in writing and little of that off forms. The way you know you passed muster is that you get a check.

No one apologizes. The front line personnel are not well trained and a new regulation either throws them or pisses them off. There is a kind of willful ignorance. Or, perhaps, more charitably, a practiced ignorance in the face of fraudulent claims and dumb filers.

We were neither.

The other problem is that the process for filing under the community property laws is not perfected. It is very clunky for everyone. We have to file separate returns and a worksheet. They have to pull up both returns. The same official has to do it. And so on.

In any case, it is very much in our interest to have pursued this. A lot of money is involved.

So, this is a relief. Sigh.

Now let's see what happens with the other two years.