Friday, July 27, 2012

R&R and IRS

We had a wonderfully refreshing time on our little getaway this week.  The R&R was fabulous, but now it’s back to real life.  Sawyer has his second Remicade infusion treatment today for his Crohn’s disease.  He’s been feeling fantastic since he started steroids (early July) to help control his severe Crohn’s flare-up.  He’s still weaning from the steroids (he’s at 10mg/day) now, so it’s hard to know if the Remicade is working yet, but Sawyer says he feels better than he’s felt in many months.  We’ve never seen Sawyer have this huge of an appetite, so it’s great to see him WANT food!  Every single day of Sawyer’s life (until steroids) has been a battle for us to get enough calories and nutrition into his body because he’s never wanted to eat.  What a delight to see Sawyer eating ravenously, as his body has always needed more calories.  What Satan intends for evil, God uses for good.  We praise Him for His provision and for carrying Sawyer through this storm.  He is faithful and will use this trial in ways we least expect.

 

Speaking of trials, would you please pray for a situation with the IRS that is frustrating us to no end?!?!  If you’re an adoptive family within the past 5 years, you probably got audited for your adoption credit(s).  We did.  The IRS is STILL not accepting Chrissie’s adoption.  Y’all, this is a child who is dead now (although she eternally dances with Jesus).  Every single time we get a letter from the IRS regarding Chrissie’s adoption, it’s like stabbing a knife into our hearts.  I simply cannot believe the IRS continues to fight this!!!!!!!  The problem originated because Chrissie never got a social security number.  We applied for that before Chrissie’s surgery, but the person at our local Social Security Administration office never followed through.  We got the original SS# application back a few months ago so that we could prove to the IRS that we did INDEED apply for a SS#, but now the IRS is stating that Chrissie’s adoption was not a special needs adoption.  WHAT?!?!?!?!  We had already sent them all of the receipts to prove what we spent on her adoption, plus with a special needs adoption, one doesn’t even need to prove expenses to the IRS.  How in the world with the receipts AND proof of special needs could the IRS disallow Chrissie’s adoption credit?!?!?!  Every single time we send in what they ask for, they reply with a new request for different info, always disallowing the credit.  It’s not rocket science, y’all.  This isn’t even a refund.  It’s a credit applied to our taxes from 2009.  Now the IRS is saying we owe over $18,000 due to penalties and extra interest on top of Chrissie’s adoption credit that they disallowed.  We’ve sent all required documentation, including Chrissie’s adoption decree, birth certificate, death certificate, proof of special needs adoption, receipts, as well as a variety of other miscellaneous documents related to Chrissie’s adoption.

 

When we arrived home from vacation, there was yet another denial/disallowance letter from the IRS.  This literally just makes us sick.  We do NOT want to keep hashing this out, and we are NOT paying $18,000 when we legitimately adopted Chrissie and have everything to prove it.  We’ve even contacted a tax advocate, who recommended we send in the last set of newly requested info (to the IRS), as that is all that they would do for us anyway.  I will contact an advocate again and see if we can get someone to help us with this.  Every time I call the phone number listed on the IRS letter(s), I cannot get accurate info.  We haven’t ever been able to speak to our tax examiner, only a random IRS representative who never has a clue what’s going on with this.  They just tell us to send in all of the info we’ve already sent.  So, we send it in, then wait 2-3 months to hear back from the IRS, and each time, the IRS has disallowed the adoption credit and then charges more interest since the interest accumulates from the day the taxes were originally filed.  We are always given 15 days to respond, yet the IRS can take as long as they want to respond.  Their letters always say, “We apologize for our delay in responding and any inconvenience it may have caused you.  The information submitted has been carefully considered and the following shows our determination:  We are disallowing the adoption credit.”

 

This time the letter says, “For Christyn, there is no special need in a foreign adoption.”  We were told that special need adoptions can be international or domestic.  Has anyone else encountered this problem?!?!?!  Has anyone else filed a special needs foreign adoption and received the adoption credit? 

 

Oh, and in addition to calling the IRS phone # listed on the letter(s), we’ve also requested our examiner return our phone call, but no one ever has.

 

Enough is enough, so I’m calling in the troops—the army of prayer warriors.  Would you please pray that the IRS would see that we’re not claiming some type of fraudulent adoption?!?!  Chrissie was a real, live child whom we adored, who now lives with Jesus.  Pray that the IRS would have their eyes opened to the truth of Chrissie’s adoption and give us the adoption credit from 2009 that we deserve!!!  Thank you!

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