Due to having worked as an independent contractor for part of the year, we had to pay the IRS and we had filed by paper. We are trying to obtain our taxes via the retrieval tool and it is not yet available. According to the IRS website it is available mid June. Has anyone had a similar situation and been able to use the retrieval tool?
What date did you mail in the tax return? What date did the check clear?
An IRS transcript is different than using the DRT. Is the school asking you for a transcript? If so, order it from the IRS. I believe that if you filed by mail, and paid, the transcript should be available now or very soon (as you said, mid June).
FYI, I was asked for a transcript even though the DRT worked when I submitted an appeal. I guess they needed to see all the line items which are on the transcripts.
What’s a DRT? We mailed it the first week in April. We paid with a money order purchased at the post office and sent via certified mail. I tracked that it was received.
That’s what I’ve been trying to do - the DRT. It says it is not available. Would that be available sooner than a transcript?
You won’t be able to use DRT or get a tax return transcript until up to 2-3 weeks after the return is processed. The return can be processed as late as some time in June for a paper filed return mailed by the due date with a balance due.
Transcripts for 2015 taxes paper filed with an amount owed will be available mid to late June.
See: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/transcript-availability
(sorry, the chart doesn’t not copy and paste, but go to the site)
Even if the IRS processed the check, the return will not be processed until mid June, so it should be available in the next two weeks.
You can efile and send in a payment due, that might speed things up in the future.
Also if one parent has a W2 job they can change their withholding to make up for the other parent who is self employed, by having more withheld. You can do that any time during the year.
@mommdc The OP already did a paper filing so it’s a little late to file electronically for the OP!
So I called and was told that while they have received our payment and applied it to our account, they hadn’t received our income tax returns. They suggest we file it electronically or mail it in again. How can that be when I had the payment stapled to the return? SMH
When returns are received by the IRS, the payment goes one way and the return another. They had a report on 60 Minutes and it was very interesting. If you have attached anything not indicated to be attached (receipts, schedules, explanations) they are stripped off and tossed. The checks are immediately sent through the lock box, the information entered onto a computer and then paper return sent along a track to the next place to process it.
^Link?
If you mean the 60 Minutes link it was years ago.
Also years ago, maybe 2011? 2012? there were several tax credits made available but in order to prevent fraud the claimers of those credits were required to file a paper return. The second year of the (not new but substantially changed) adoption credit, the IRS required receipts and other support for every credit claimed. Several people I know thought they’d get a jump on the processing by including the documents with their returns, showing all the expenses for their adoptions. These could be several inches of paper attached to the return with everything from official documents to taxi receipts, airline tickets, credit card statements with hotel payments on them. They were instructed NOT to include extra documents with their tax returns, but they did anyway. Every one of them had to resubmit when audited. The IRS office wasn’t even the same one they sent their paper returns to. They were told the documents submitted couldn’t ‘just be sent to the agent processing/auditing their paper filing’ as those documents were shredded at the initial processing center.
I worked for a government agency. All my mail was x-rayed and processed before I received it. If someone sent me a document with a check in it, I’d receive a letter saying “enclosed is a check for $XXX to cover ABC.” No check in the envelope. Ever. I’d usually get a call from the accounting department (in Dallas, I was in Florida) asking what the check was for a few weeks later. We weren’t supposed to receive personal mail at the office, but if your mother sent you a check for your birthday, it would not be in the card when it was delivered to your desk.