Or...
How gbaji got a Karma reward (thought that was out of the blue didn't ya?)
So... Let me preface this by saying that like 10 years ago, I did something really stupid. No, not that stupid thing. Nope. Not that other one either. I was buying my condo and sold a bunch of shares and exercised some options to do it. Well, being the relatively young and foolish lad I was back then, when tax time came around I didn't know how to figure out my taxes and didn't want to pay someone to do them for me so I did what any person would do (NOTE!: Don't ever do this. It's really dumb. Seriously. Not kidding!). I just didn't file. Yeah. Not the brightest move in my life (and I've made some dumb moves, so that's saying something).
Fast forward to 2 years ago (ish). IRS starts doing things like emptying out one of my banks accounts. Yippes. Guess I should deal with that, huh? I contact them and determine how much they think I owe. It's super ridiculously high. Basically, they assumed every penny was income with no deductions or gains or whatnot and calculated the base amount and all interest and fees from there. So I challenge the amount and they say I can file what I should have back then. Armed with better knowledge and whatnot, I determine that I really only owed about $4k or so back then, not the $50k or so they claimed. This somewhat dramatically decreased the amount of fines and fees.
Unfortunately, the wheels of IRS returns and IRS collections apparently move at different speeds. So I was still required to pay the full amount they claimed even though I'd filed a challenge. Now, I suppose I could have hired one of those tax attorneys or whatnot, but I'm a stubborn do it myselfer, so I just went with it. I ended out paying off the super duper large sum back in March of last year. It occurred to me that once I'd paid that full amount, the IRS would have pretty much zero incentive to spend any time or effort verifying my filing and giving me any of that money back. I'd pretty much reconciled myself to the fact that I wasn't likely to see any of that money. But I'd bought myself peace of mind, no longer having to worry about any debts hanging over my head (and still being relatively well off financially even after the hit).
So imagine my surprise when I check my mailbox last night (Sunday) and find a letter from the IRS. My first thought was "Oh Crap! What the hell did I forget, do wrong, or otherwise do that might result in them taking yet more money from me"? Then I read it. And read it again. They apparently did finally (only took them nearly two years!) do the math and concurred with my somewhat haphazard and guestimated math and were giving me a refund of $97k (and change)! Which is pretty much what I was asking for, best case. Yay! So still dorked, but not nearly as much as I was originally. And the good thing is that money I'd basically written off has returned to me.
So? Spending spree? Invest wisely? Huge party? I'd already planned on paying off the car (if said return ever showed up), but beyond that I'm not sure what to do with said money. I'm already planning on doing a refloor/refurnish of the house this summer, but I've got cash on hand for that. This is all pretty much bonus money at the moment. And I'm pretty jazzed. And was this a Karma reward? I hadn't actually checked the mail until Sunday night, so the box is just a cloud of probabilities up until that point, right? Hmmm...
Edited, Jun 18th 2012 7:35pm by gbaji