Lawful Evil

So... if you recall... back in Feb, I got a letter that I owed $700+ to CA for tax year 2004. I sent them the check because H&R block couldn't get to deal with it right away(because it was in the middle of tax season). When we got to it, we fixed the problem and submitted an amended return. That was back in March.

Come June, I call them. They are working it. It takes 4-6 months to process past year tax forms. Okay fine. I call back in August. Not quite done. Call back after Labor Day. Okay fine. I call back after Labor Day. Not done yet, give us a little more time.

I call back today. They are done. They discarded my amended return because I didn't follow the procedures. If I paid the balance due, I wasn't supposed to amend the return because paying meant I agreed with it. If I wanted to amend, I was supposed to send a separate letter protesting their claims and then amend.

The problem, or course, was that I had 14 days to pay or protest. I didn't have any information to use to protest at the time(because H&R hadn't gotten to it yet). So, I paid. When the received the amended return and processed it for 6 months, they decided I didn't really mean to send it in or call all those times, so they dumped it in the trash.

Back to square one. I have to send another amended return in(just the same as the one I sent which they threw away). WTF? They had the return. It has my name, address, phone number. They could have called/written if they had questions. The return was obviously not in their favor and they felt it didn't follow procedures, so in the trash.