Stupid Illinois Taxes

brij2006 · June 2016

So I open up the mail yesterday and we have a notice from the Illinois Department of Revenue, saying that we paid our tax bill late and we owe them a $190 late fee, plus 20% of the tax bill. It's showing our tax bill was $4,900 and that we paid it but paid it late. Well our tax bill was $1,680 and it cleared on 4/13. So paid 2 days before the 15th.

Ugh, so I called the state. The lady was not helpful at all. She just kept saying we owed it. In total the bill would be $1,170 for "fees." I told her that our check cleared on 4/13 for this payment, so we owe nothing. She kept arguing that we paid it late. So I told her to tell me what check number it was paid with and what date did they receive the payment. She couldn't answer it. Just said it was after the 15th of April.

So I dug deeper and told her that we did not owe $4,900, we owed $1,680 and that was how much our check was for, so their statement they sent us is incorrect altogether. Needless to say, at the end of our conversation I asked her what I needed to do to get this cleared up. She told me they do not have the staffing right now with no budget, to get this corrected. So I will have to wait till they take me to collections and then court.

Are you effing kidding me? I may have responded with, "well you don't have the staffing to correct it, so I'm guessing you don't have the staffing to send it to collections and take me to court."

Guess I need to reach out to our accountant and ask what we do from here, but my goodness Illinois. Get your shit together.

formerlyjessica490 · June 2016

Wow, unbelievable! Hopefully you can just send them a proof of the check cashing before 4/15 from a bank statement or something....

smerka · June 2016

That is messed up. Just so you know, the filing date for 2015 returns was April 18, 2016. I would call your state representative's office. They're not getting an effing budget done so they should have plenty of time to help you.

smerka · June 2016

Did you hear they are shutting down all road construction projects June 30th if they don't get IDOT some funding? There two MAJOR roads near my house that are currently ripped up. It's like they don't want me to able to get anywhere.

Xstatic3333 · June 2016

That's so infuriating. I'm so sorry. In addition to @smerka's advice, maybe you could send them a certified letter with the cancelled check?

vlagrl35 · June 2016

WTF - so frustrating - I absolutely hate dealing with incompetent people.

csuave · June 2016

wow, just wow. I hate it when other people's screw ups cause you more work.

Mustard76 · June 2016

Ugggggggh. Sorry, that blows. The State of Illinois is a joke. We've been back for 10 months and can't wait to leave it again. Good luck!!

brij2006 · June 2016

smerka said:

That is messed up. Just so you know, the filing date for 2015 returns was April 18, 2016. I would call your state representative's office. They're not getting an effing budget done so they should have plenty of time to help you.

Haha I actually threw this one at her too. I told her, "and just to add, the returns were due on the 18th of April this year, so technically my payment was 5 days early! You're welcome."

Illinois is just nuts right now. My H is a commissioner for our town, and is running for mayor in the fall. He's the finances commissioner right now, and he said that it's a huge mess. They're running the town budget on just the money that's coming in from the community. There has been no money released from the state in the past year. So he's been trying to make cuts that aren't employees or benefits, and he's trying to figure out how to run everything knowing that they likely won't see any back pay from the state for the past year.

It's unfortunate that Springfield can't get their act together and come to some sort of agreement. Mike Smiddy is the representative for our district and he said it is a mess down there. It's mostly that nobody can actually just put together a balanced budget. Instead they want to try and push all of these negative budgets on the governor and he won't agree to them. He also said that every "budget" that's getting pushed to the governor has a bunch of other fluff involved in it that he won't pass, so that's half the battle as well.

In the meantime I'm sitting here with a tax bill that they've messed up and won't correct because they don't have the manpower to do so. It's beyond frustrating. The last thing I need is for the state to come after me because of a tax bill. All because they screwed up and won't correct it.

smerka · June 2016

They had two IL reps on the Daily Show last night. It would have been laughable if it wasn't so depressing.

short+sassy · June 2016

UGH!!! I am SO sorry to hear that. I'd be infuriated also.

I have a similar situation going on in Louisiana with my LLC. I guess I'm supposed to file the "sales tax" I've collected on a monthly basis. Which is zero and will always be zero, because I don't sell products.

Except I apparently need some special number in order to file a sales tax report. Which I've requested multiple times with no response. Now I'm getting nasty letters about all this money I owe because I haven't filed.

I've called their help line a dozen times at all different times of the day. But the circuits are always too busy to even put me on "hold".

Still trying to figure that one out! I wish us both luck.

Stupid Illinois Taxes

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