the IRS can suck my balls.

so a lot's happened in the past few months. most notably, we bought a house.

recently, as part of the stimulus package, the US govt is now ponying up an $8000 tax credit (ie, free money) to first time homebuyers. y'know, us.

so we bought a house. and the thing about this market, any house for sale needs work. a lot of it. more than $8k worth. it's all foreclosures and short sales and dumps. we bought the latter two...

so we filed an extension on our taxes, since we knew we'd be buying shortly after april 15. we closed on the house june 4. I made the mistake of trying to file our taxes june 2, before the paperwork had gone through... red flag. waited, filed again on june 4. was told great, we have your tax return, and you'll have $8k deposited into your account june 18!

it's now august 24. we still don't have our money.

back on july 12, we got something in the mail asking us to prove we actually bought the damn house. as if sending mail to us at the new address didn't suffice... so we contacted the escrow company, had them send a copy of the HUD-1 statement with all the signatures, and faxed that off. nothing happened. called two weeks later, was told it could take 30-45 days. called two weeks after that, still told it could take up to 45 days. called today. "oh, it's been six weeks, I don't see that we ever got the documents you faxed." should probably send them again. why it took them six weeks to realise they never got them is beyond me. for all I know, I'll probably be penalized somehow for not responding to their original request within thirty days. y'know, 'cos it's MY fault they're fucking retarded.

fucking great. I have a fax confirmation in my hand of the documents I faxed to the number they told me to send to. they're covered in all sorts of sensitive info, like my SSN and all that. and they can't find it.

so I faxed the documents off AGAIN today. they tell me to write my name and SSN on EVERY PAGE this time. sure, why not my DOB, mother's maiden and a DNA sample while you're at it?

meanwhile, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done on the house, we have a contractor lined up to begin a very expensive bathroom remodel next month, and we still don't have that tax credit. the one that was supposed to entice us to buy a house right away. y'know, the one that was supposed to help pay for repairs on the obviously inferior house you'd have to buy in this market...

fuck. the. IRS. up. their. stupid. ass.