Hard time writing

In Dad's letter from August '44 he has a hard time writing and I've missed a whole month. I got into a routine of going to the library or Barnes and Noble and writing a couple of times a week. I've been writing about the years from 2001 to 2011. I'm up to 2009. I want to reflect on our life during those years. Since I last wrote in April we went to Austin in May and saw Jenny and Chris and also I attended the Friends Peace Teams council meeting in Austin. We are now getting ready to go to Intermountain yearly meeting at Ghost Ranch. Our hope is to camp. We have a full size blow up air bed so we can be fairly comfortable.

I guess I can catch up on where we are with the IRS. When we returned from Texas we had a conference call with the lawyer, the IRS lady and Tim and I. there was some learning going on on this phone call. The lawyer was surprised that the IRS lady thought that putting a letter in with the form was the same as an attachment. I was surprised 1)that the IRS appeals person had not really considered the law schools position, 2) that she had not looked at or seen the original form when that is what the penalty is about and 3) that even though the penalty is about frivolous filing the fact that I still owed money for years after the one the penalty is for seem to figure in to what she is deciding. It is one of those things that come up in my life, people say something and I can not believe what they are saying so I am sure they are wrong. In this case, each time I talked with an IRS person they would say, 'this penalty is because you owe us money'. That is not what the frivolous filing rules say but evidently it does seem to be the case. As one tax court judge said 'it is about manipulating you in to compliance'. So in order to work with the lawyers at the law school I have sent in the money owed for 2011. The IRS seems to be after getting the penalty down to $500 or 0, considering that somehow or other they paid $700 toward it. I think this is some of the money they took from my paycheck for past due taxes. So there will be another call. I am considering letting the law school handle it without me, as I am not as artful as the professor in not saying something confrontational. In terms of surprises, I think the IRS lady was surprised that she was expected to do her job. I was impressed that the lawyer just said she was glad to know her position and asked for a few weeks to regroup with the new law student, who was also listening in. I realized that this time gives the IRS a chance to really look at the situation again and get the original form. Anyway I feel that this is a labyrinth I am ready to get out of.