After such a gorgeous day Saturday, a front came through and the temperature dropped down close to freezing Saturday night with 20-25 mph winds and a little rain. Yuk. So I decided to stay inside and do our taxes last evening. I didn't finish and get them sent in electronically until around 2 AM. Bad enough. But when I got up this morning and checked my e-mail I found that the Feds had REJECTED my tax return!! WHAT!!
Now that was bad enough. But when I went on to read the e-mail about what the problem was, I began to feel as if I were reading in another language or something. I've done my taxes using TaxACT for the last 5 or 6 years and it's generally no problem at all. But this . . . well, you don't really need to read all the way through this thing, but I'm going to copy it here anyway because this is NOT what I would consider an "explanation." Do you? The terms in red were particularly obscure to me.
Date: Sunday, March 21, 2010 05:24 AM
Status: Federal Electronic Return Rejected
The TaxACT Electronic Filing Department has received notice that the Federal electronic return for S... was rejected by the Internal Revenue Service on 03/20/2010. Because a State electronic return was transmitted along with this Federal electronic return, the State electronic return has also been rejected. The Federal electronic return was rejected due to the error(s) shown below:
Form/Schedule: Making work pay
Form Copy: 1
Error Code: 1132
Error Description: Schedule M - Economic Recovery Payments Received does not match the IRS records. If you do not recall if you received the payment, please contact your respective agency (what does THAT mean???) below to verify before resubmitting the return claiming the Making Work Pay and Government Retiree Credits (never heard of this). If you contact the agency (WHAT agency??) and a discrepancy did occur, then the agency must provide you a letter confirming the discrepancy. You should not claim the Making Work Pay and Government Retiree Credit when filing your return, instead, you will need to first file your return, once accepted, you will need to file an amended return and you must attach a copy of the agency letter confirming the discrepancy. - Social Security Administration: Toll-free number is 800-772-1213. General ERP inquiries can be answered by the SSA Web site: http://www.ssa.gov/recovery/. - Veterans Administration: Toll-free number is 800-827-1000. General ERP inquiries can be answered by going to the VA Web site: http://www4.va.gov/recovery/. - Railroad Retirement Board: Go to the RRB Web site at http://www.rrb.gov/recovery/ for more details. You may also call the IRS at 1-866-234-2942 to determine if you received the one-time payment and which agency made the payment. To review your entries follow the below steps: 1) Log into TaxACT Online or start your TaxACT desktop return. 2) Click on the Federal Q&A tab 3) Click Other Credits, then Making work pay and government retiree credit. 4) Click YES and TaxACT will proceed with the interview questions for you to enter or review your the appropriate information. Repeat the Filing step to resubmit your return.
Although this return has been rejected by the Internal Revenue Service, it can still be filed electronically. To do so, just correct the errors shown above, then go through the filing step and electronic filing process again to re-transmit the return using TaxACT.
If, for some reason, these errors cannot be corrected, you will need to print and file a Federal paper return in TaxACT.
I read through that thing about a dozen times before I zoomed in on that "Veterans Administration" thing in the middle there. Ah ha! Mark gets a small monthly payment from the VA for some disabilities acquired in Viet Nam. So I talked to Mark, and by golly -- he did receive a check from the VA last year that I was apparently supposed to subtract from our refund amount. Jeez! Who knew! Anyway, I've entered that on the return and sent it in again. So now I'm sitting here waiting to see if the next e-mail indicates acceptance, or yet another rejection -- in which case I will be turning the thing over to a nice tax attorney. The whole tax return thing puts me in a miserable mood under the best of circumstances. Trying to figure out something I don't know anything about just isn't worth the hassle. So . . . hopefully next time I check in I'll be my regular cheery self, one way or the other. We'll see.
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