Fuck the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1994 the government made some "improvements" to the Federal Income Tax process. The basic idea, I suppose, was to eliminate the filing of "dependants" by people who actually didn't have dependants, but were claiming the deductions. Needless to say, the software was not completely checked out (1 guess) and our tax refund was put on hold. I wrote the Internal Revenue Service the following letter with the thought that a simple statement of the facts would clear up the situation, and amazingly, it did.

February 15th, 1995

Dear Internal Revenue Service:

Please find my 1994 tax return enclosed. I was not able to file it electronically because of some improvements you have made in your processes.

My ex-wife filed Head of Household (which is about the only time in her life she ever defined herself and head in the same sentence) and listed her social security number as 120-XX-XXXX. In addition,

She listed my children's numbers as 103-XX-XXXX and 103-XX-XXXX, as required to file Head of Household.

120-XX-XXXX (my ex-wife) did NOT claim either child as dependants, as I pay support in accordance with our agreement of 1980. I trust this is sufficient documentation for my return to be processed and expect notification if otherwise.

Howard Beatty (055-XX-XXXX) 375 Rugby Avenue

Rochester, New Your

ps. Your programmers could have done a better job!