Humbly winning an argument

Since I wrote quite a bit about my frivolous filing penalty with the IRS I thought I would share the end of the story. I thought it had ended in August of 2012 when I agreed to pay a $500 penalty instead of the $5000 penalty. I was blue about this but did feel that it was the best decision considering the situation. It turned out that the 500 dollars had already been taken along with an extra $200 from our daughter's college fund. So the IRS owed me $200 and I kept looking in the mailbox for it and Tim kept laughing.

I finally quit looking for that check and then in December of 2012 I get a call from one of the people I had spoken with at the IRS suggesting that I file a form 843 asking for a refund and abatement of the penalty. I did so and sent it off to Ogden Utah. Then in January I get a call from a tax advocate who has been assigned to my case who will call occasionally to tell me what is happening in terms of the maze of the IRS offices and where my paper is at. She says it is a long shot that I will get the refund and it could take a couple of years. When she checks in with me in April her tone has changed and she says it has gone to the Chief Counsels office in DC and that she is optimistic of my getting the refund. Then in May we come home the day before I head off to the Friends Peace Team meeting in St. Louis and there is a message on our answering machine that says; 'the IRS has agreed to drop the penalty, a check will be in the mail this Friday'. Wow, Woah, woot woot! Whatever else one can say. I got two checks one for the $200 and one last week for the $500 both + interest.

Then from the National War Tax Resisters Coordinating Committee came a memo saying based on my case a notice is going out to IRS workers that if a tax payer fills out a form correctly and adds in a letter of conscience the frivolous filing penalty does not apply. When I began to appeal the penalty I was reading about 'joyfully loosing an argument'. Now I find I need to work on 'humbly winning one'.