Dear Tax Examiner ...

72 Receipts Found

(airlines, hotels, grocery stores,

 gas stations, attorney, homestudy, etc...)

55 Copies Made

(w/ an identical set of copies

 made for our records - total 110 copies)

95 Expenses Documented

(those without receipts were categorized

 and listed on a handwritten "receipt")

1 Letter Written

(with copy below, for all of you that

 are still wondering what you are 

 going to need to do for the IRS)

1 Envelope Mailed 

(5 minutes before the cut-off 

 for Overnight FedEx.  You bet I

 paid $43 to ship it overnight to NY.)

Now ... 

Time. For. A. Nap.

(we have out-of-town company

 arriving in a few hours, so I

 expect a late night of visiting.)

Dear Tax Examiner,

We are responding to the letter we received from the IRS, regarding the need for more information in order to process our Adoption Tax Credit.

I am enclosing the following:

1. A copy of the Letter from the IRS, with our contact phone numbers listed on the back.

2. Copies of our #8839 forms from 2008 and 2009.

3. A copy of the Adoption Order processed in Accra, Ghana, West Africa.

4. A copy of the Decree of Re-Adoption processed in the Superior Court of the State of Washington.

5. A 5 page Category Summary (using Quicken software) of all of our Adoption Expenses, with Category Totals and Total Adoption Expenses listed.

6. 14 stapled packets of Receipts … divided by the 14 Categories of the Category Summary.

7. Copies of 72 Receipts pertaining to our Adoption Expenses.

8. Categorized Lists of expenses that we were not given receipts for, as some businesses in Third World Countries do not ordinarily give receipts.

We are hoping that you will be able to process our refund as soon as possible, as we are in a very difficult financial situation due to the delays in the processing of our tax refund.  Jim has spent much of the past 6 months unemployed, and Laurel is a full-time mom, staying home with our 6 younger children.  (We have 12 children.)

 We have been most disappointed with the IRS delays because we had promised to help 2 of our older children pay for their July weddings, with the expected Adoption Tax Credit.  Sadly, those weddings are almost upon us and we have not had any funds to contribute.  At this time, we do not even have the money to attend our daughter’s out-of-state wedding on July 30^th.  We are hoping that our refund can be expedited so that we can afford to buy gas to drive there, and pay for hotel rooms for the weekend. 

Thank you for doing all that you can to expedite the processing of our refund, so that we can attend our daughter’s wedding.

Sincerely,

Jim & Laurel

If you are not this far along in your process yet, and you aren't quite as an administrator as I am, feel free to copy this letter for your own use ... but don't use the "my daughter's wedding" line, unless of course it's true.  (smile)

Seriously.  If you want any help in how to organize and present your "case", just let me know.  I can send you copies of my "Category Summary", and walk you through the process.

A friend of mine sent me an email today with a very disturbing thought ...

It almost looks like discrimination to me. What other group of people gets audited as a group instead of taking people case by case? 

I've never heard of a group of people being audited.  Have you?  "All Painters who file a Schedule C are going to get audited this year."  Not!