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Comment by pdubs | Hacker News Reader

Only if it's malicious or intentional. A mistake will be picked up and you'll get a form a year or two later asking you to accept or challenge proposed corrections. If less tax was paid than required you have to pay that + interest...which really isn't that unreasonable.

I'm not saying the whole system isn't needlessly complex, but don't make it out like the IRS is actively out to get you.

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My return for 2008 or 09 was a mess. I had one 1099 I never received from a former employer I'm convinced was trying to screw me, I had one 1099 sent to a former address and a debt forgiveness 1099 from a credit card charge off. I got a packet from the IRS listing the adjustments, what they proposed I owed and very clear and detailed instructions on how to respond to each of the three changes.

Incredibly easy to resolve the entire ordeal within weeks, including full payment.

I have no doubt that if the IRS truly made it a policy to extract as much money from everyone as they could, they would have just audited me and nit picked every math error ad nauseum until I was drowning in penalties and interest.

This is part of why I have a CPA now.

I challenged the adjustments to one of my returns and the most difficult part for me was finding a damn fax machine while I was on hold with a very helpful woman at the IRS. In the end they admitted they made a mistake (to their credit, an understandable one) in saying that I made a mistake and I lost a total of maybe an hour or two of my time.

I'm sure if I didn't have three separate things to verify and pay or challenge it would have been quicker :)

I ended up challenging one of the three and I spent more time writing that letter and including supporting documentation than anything else.

>> If less tax was paid than required you have to pay that + interest...which really isn't that unreasonable.

If I pay too much, do I get interest back on the overage?

I got paid interest because the IRS took longer than they were supposed to when they processed my return claiming the first time homeowner credit. I wasn't expecting it, and I certainly wasn't expecting the interest rate I was paid to be higher than any non-credit-card interest rate, but it was.

I treated myself to a bottle of Lagavulin 16 and a couple good cigars.

If you made the mistake of paying too much, why would the government be liable for the interest on that error?

It's not so much of a mistake, per se, but a function of dealing with estimated tax payments as a self-employed person with fluctuating income. I could very easily pay the amounts required, and then suffer a bad Q4 and have a much lower tax obligation than what I've paid in, all while meeting the mandatory minimums that the IRS requires me to pay quarterly.

Of course, I'm not allowed to just pay the full amount when due, which would solve the problem (for me, but potentially cause much larger problems for people and the government w.r.t. those who don't/can't budget appropriately).

It is nice to hear (from fotbr) that in the case of an actual mistake on behalf of the IRS that they actually pay interest... I did not know that, and wouldn't have expected it.

Yes, usually.

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