Oh don't worry. When you get an audit notice you get assigned an agent dedicated to your case. You can talk to them easily. They will talk to you all the time. It's amazing. The question and answer flow is just non ending.
Like many FAANG employees, the IRS calculates my withholding incorrectly. I got a letter in January announcing that I didn't withhold enough and applying a penalty.<p>I spent two hours on the phone on a Friday being bounced around the IRS. Talked to plenty of people, but each one thought I was someone else's problem. I tried again on that Monday: waited on the phone for two full hours before being unceremoniously hung up on by their automated system.<p>FWIW, it seems there's the luck of the draw on three distinct systems (robot + touch dial menu + human operator, robot + voice menu + human operator, or just robot + voice menu). They're incompatibly dysfunctional. The first one is when I got bounced around. The second one, the operator hung up on me because she couldn't hear callers routed through that system. The last one was where I spent 2 hours without a human before being dropped.<p>Calling the IRS was even more of a pain in the ass than I anticipated. I gave up and paid the penalty. (And that was in January!)
I got audited once. They had my old address, and I was very worried it would appear I was avoiding them. I kept calling my agent and leaving messages- but I never got a hold of anyone. I reached out to a CPA who said I should fax the agent instead. I got a response after that! This was only 10 years ago- so don’t underestimate the power of a fax when dealing with the IRS!
I have never called IRS before, but I can imagine how horrible that can be. I called banks before, It may take 50 minutes for someone to pick up the phone.<p>I don't understand why they think live phone call serves customers better, whereas I think email is a much better option and they seem to remove this option.
This technique can also be used to protect your copyright.<p>A Taiwanese YouTuber was annoyed because somebody always pirate his content to China mainland sites like bilibili. He complained to bilibili but no response.<p>So, he intentionally put a small Winnie-the-Pooh in the corner of the video, only on 1-2 frames. Then his contents got deleted immediately.
It would be nice to have an overlay on your phone that displays the options of what you can press. I’ve always wanted to skip having to listen to the recorded message drone on and on before mentioning which number to press for something.<p>Does anyone know if such an app already exists?
A few years ago when I had to call the Canada Revenue Agency, I got a human immediately. No machine. Just a hello/bonjour and then asking for my info and solving my problem. It was quite shocking given the stereotype that tax agencies suuuuuuuck.