I called up the IRS yesterday…

Now isn’t that a fine way to start a post?

I called up the IRS yesterday with a question I had never thought I would ever have to ask and that was:

What if I didn’t earn any money last year?

It was a legitimate question since, for the first time in my life, I actually didn’t make a single paycheck last year and I found myself at a total loss—I’ve never not filed before.

I mean, I’ve always filed a tax return every year since I was 17 (and I’ll be 50 next month), I’ve always made a paycheck so what to do now?  Obviously too large a quandary for my small mind to cope with so I grabbed my tax form and went in search of the IRS toll free number in hopes to find the answer to my problem.

So this was the IRS?

The first thing I encountered was the expected electronic carousel giving me 5 different options to chose from. I picked the last one and after the usual “Conversation may be monitored for reasons of quality of service blah, blah, blah” I was transferred to the next available service representative i.e. I was put on hold.

Swan Lake played in my ear.

I actually like the music of Swan Lake even though listening through a phone’s handset doesn’t exactly provide what one would call an experience in high fidelity. But it was better than the standard fare of ‘muzak de telephony’ one usually encounters. Surprisingly enough my low-fi concert was cut off in less than 5 minutes when a friendly sounding male voice came on the line.

Note that I said friendly. I was not expecting this.

So I told him my situation. Disabled Vet, taken out of work by disabilities late 2007, didn’t make a single paycheck last year and what the hell do I do now?

He thanked me for serving my country.

Excuse me? The IRS thanking me for serving my country?? Okay, I’m totally thrown by now. This is the Internal Revenue Service thanking me for serving my country. It’s got to be a fluke or the guy I was talking to was also a vet but I’ll take the appreciation wherever it came from.

Now I’m sent off to another agent who can help me with my particular situation.

Tales From the Vienna Woods began waltzing in my ear.

Now this wasn’t bad at all. First there’s the ‘thanks for serving’ from an IRS agent who doesn’t even know me and now I’m being virtually waltzed around my head by some of my favorite classical pieces while waiting for the next available agent. Things could be worse.

The next person I talk to doesn’t thank me for serving my country but I figure once is plenty. He was friendly enough though.

After asking me about a half a dozen questions or so to establish the basics we buckled down to the real meaty questions—all 3,425.6 of them (more or less–probably less). Fifteen minutes of grueling questions later punctuated by a plethora of what’s? and pardon me’s? from myself we finally determined that I do not have to file an income tax return this year.

Well, bless my soul. A thank you, two lovely waltzes, two friendly voices and no filing this year. Okay, so that means to tax return check but let’s not complain about trivialities.

I thanked him for the help and hung up. The whole thing took less than 40 minutes and I was thanked for my trouble. All in all, not a bad experience in the least.

Here’s hoping they don’t jump all over me for not filing 5 years from now.