No one likes getting mail from the IRS. I’m not different, and I suspect that you, like me, has a heart that skips a beat when one of those love letters shows up in his mailbox.
I’ve become numb to it, however. Why? Simple: because I get the same two letters, month after month, and year after year, for years. One letter looks like this:
The other letter, received the same day, looks like this:
Yep, they’re both Change of Address notifications. What they state in the letter is that the address used by my payroll processor is different than the address they have on file, so they are writing to both the old address and the new address to make plain they have updated their database.
Have I, in fact, changed addresses? No, not for decades. So, what’s going on? Simple: the IRS has my street address has 555 Bryant St whereas m payroll processor uses the address 555 Bryant Street. That’s right. One uses Street, and the other uses the common abbreviation St, so as far as the IRS’s FORTRAN and COBOL code written in 1963 is concerned, I’ve changed addresses.
I realize that the amount of money spent creating and mailing these letters over the decades doesn’t add up to much, but it’s still hundreds of dollars down the toilet, and I’m just one guy. It’s a microscopic example of the kind of bungling ineptitude which is the very foundation of any large government body.
No matter. Unless you’re rich, you know what to do, or else you’re heading to prison.
And be sure to know the proper street address where they can reach you!
