Here's hoping I get my tax return before the fall

I apologize in advance. This column is going to be a bit of a rant. You see tax season just ended and this one stressed me a bit.

I can’t say for sure, but I would guess it has been decades since I actually mailed my taxes off at the post office thanks to e-file. The IRS and all the tax preparing folks and tax software actually push the option as a convenience that will speed up your refund by weeks. Some of those years I was paying so it wasn’t that exciting, but in recent years refunds have been more the norm.

I’ve always put off doing my return until April, often until the last few days possible. This year I waited until April but I did start nearly two weeks before the April 15 deadline. I wanted to make sure if I had extra hoops to jump through since my wife passed away during the 2023 tax year that I would have plenty of time.

I used the online tax software that I used last year. Even though last year’s refund got held up until the fall, I had determined it was the IRS that was solely to blame. Somehow, even though my taxes were e-filed in April and my wife didn’t die until early May it was still held up because they needed additional paperwork because of her death. Normally by May the IRS always had our refund in the bank if we were getting one.

The first snag I hit was form 1310. Depending on how you read things I might or might not have to file the form.

So I sent a help ticket by email to the software group. No answer for a week. I tried to file it anyway. The software said my wife’s Social Security number wasn’t recognized.

I read the instructions for the form a few more times and decided I probably didn’t need to file it, so I went on and finished through the software.

Everything went swimmingly, I thought, until it came back that IRS had rejected the return. It said there was a problem with my wife’s e-signature, I had used her previous year’s e-file pin but there was another option of using the Adjusted Gross Income from the previous year’s taxes. Same rejection came back a short time later so I filed another help ticket by email.

I kept watching for a response that still hasn’t come but my senses were telling me that it was actually on the IRS side -- a thought I had been repressing all along, knowing how hard making that contact might be.

Finally last Monday (tax day) I bit the bullet and began trying to do the impossible, contact the IRS. Nothing on the website addressed why I was getting the error, even entering the error code they had sent me with the rejection was coming up with nothing in their search window. But I did find their toll free number.

I tried various options in that phone tree hell and was getting nowhere. The AI assistant told me to speak what my question was and she would answer. Every time I tried her answers seemed to get further and further off base until I swear we were exchanging pot roast recipes on the last attempt.

I went back to the website and searched some more for another way inside. Finally I decided I would call the number for a list of their free senior volunteer assistance groups. Maybe I could get one of them on the line. It took a 30-minute wait but I was shocked when a human claiming to be with the IRS answered the line.

I blurted out my dilemma and the operator said he was going to transfer me to someone who could answer my question. It took three transfers and another 30 minutes but I finally reached an intelligent sounding guy who listened and told me the Social Security Administration must already have my wife out of their system.

He suggested that I fill out form 56 Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship and send that along with a death certificate and mail the return. It made me a little woozy when he suggested I send it with a tracking number just in case. Once at the post office as I was requesting that service the lady at the counter asked if I needed to do that with my state taxes. I declined figuring, in the end, the initials IRS carried a lot more weight than MLG.

Cross your fingers that my return arrives before fall.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]