mixed feelings: irs sends $600; but why didn't the online tax app pick this up ahead of time ?
so i get a slightly thick envelope in the mail from the irs. never a good sign.
or so i think. it seems i made a mistake on my return - forgot to include a "Recovery Rebate Credit". what the hell is that ? "that" is $600, according to the treasury dept. huh - ok - works for me.
but how did this happen ? i used an online tax preparer, been using the same one for years, never any problems. now, missing $600 ? shouldn't that have been done automatically ? or, if it needed my intervention, shouldn't a big red flag have been thrown to bring my attention to work that needed doing ?
eh, no biggie, since this is one of those things that the irs says it will calculate for you if you leave it alone. and sure enough, they did. and in a very timely manner too.
they also managed to calculate my penalty for late / missing quarterly estimated payments. which was the same amount i had already calculated & paid. cool. yeah, i was just not sure how much i would work last year, so i let some of that stuff slip. and i could have saved a few bucks by using an annualized income method, but that would have taken extra mailing & potential discussions with the irs - something worth a few dollars to avoid.
and in a separate envelope - the check. dang, our tax dollars at work.