IRS misapplied a regular, quarterly tax payment for my business. So of course, the idiots then started to view that quarter as unpaid, began levying fines accordingly and seized my business' savings account . Call 5 times, get 5 different answers on how to fix it. Took about 5 months and about 20 hours of my and accountant's time to fix it. Maybe I'm lucky, by their typical standards.
“Call 5 times, get 5 different answers on how to fix it.”
My accountant’s advice was to let him respond once, confirm that his response had been received and then not make any additional attempts to contact the IRS.
He explained that each time you call or write the IRS someone else gets involved and has the opportunity to screw things up, making it that much less likely that anything will ever finally get sorted out.
Guilty until proven innocent.