This Is Getting Old Fast

A letter recently arrived informing me I would not be receiving my entire tax refund because records indicated that either my wife or I were not eighteen years old in 2005, so we couldn’t claim a tax credit on our retirement savings. Calling the IRS, they admited they weren’t sure how to categorize my problem, because their records showed that I was born on November 30, 1889. Doubting I was 117 years old and married to a woman 80+ years younger, as well as father to a 21 month old baby, they weren’t sure what to do, so they just sent off their “not yet eighteen” letter. Not only that, but the IRS said that it was Social Security’s records that had informed them I’d been born in 1889. That would mean the government owes me almost fifty years worth of retirement checks, so maybe I shouldn’t make a big deal about the couple hundred dollars withheld from my refund, and just go after the big money.

[UPDATE: I called Social Security, and they actually had no birth date whatsoever for me in their system. I told them I could fax them my birth certificate, but they said I had to go into a local office to correct my records. No apology, no “sorry to trouble you and make you come in”, the burden was all on me to set the record straight again.]