A Dark Secret, Shared

Many of you may not know that I like filling out forms. Especially tax forms. My strain of Particularity lends itself to fascination with detailed rules, and there's no better way to feed this dark hunger than with tax forms and instructions. And as sick as I know that makes me, it is a very handy obsession to have when you're living overseas and having to deal with the tax laws in two countries, including the extremely arcane IRS rules for U.S. taxpayers living abroad.

But I admit that even I was feeling intimidated at the thought of filing my 2008 taxes, where I would be dealing with a half-year's residence in two countries, plus filing as a new, part-year resident of Minnesota, plus moving expenses, etc. So I was pleasantly surprised that it only took me a few hours to complete both my U.S. and Minnesota returns on April 14 (I could have done them on the 15th, but it's never a good idea to wait for the last minute! For example, my French taxes don't have to be filed until June 18, so I imagine I may start them as early as tonight.).

I am expecting a nice refund on my U.S. Federal taxes, and it recently occured to me that the IRS has had my return for almost two months now and should be ready to send me money by now, so I went online to check on the status of my refund. I got a message that my return has not been processed because my Social Security number and/or name was wrong. I checked my copy of the return several times, confirmed that both were correct, and then called the IRS to find out what was going on.

It turns out that my name and Social Security number were fine, but that I had supposedly miscalculated my taxes, and the U.S. government wants to give me back about $2,000 more than I had requested. Really?! According to the IRS, my $355 in capital gains qualifies me for a different tax calculation (right . . .), and this mysteriously morphed into an additional two grand for me. I know W's tax policies favored the rich, with lots of capital gains shelters, but this really seemed out of line!

So I just spent an hour on the phone, talking the IRS agent through the calculation of my foreign earned income, and of course, my initial calculation was right, and the IRS was wrong.

Let me repeat: I was right, and the IRS was wrong. How sick is it that the satisfaction of writing that almost makes up for the lost $2,000?