Florida woman can’t pay taxes because the IRS keeps telling her she’s dead

WBTV ^ | 8/10/2021 | Shannon Behnken

[simpson96]

SPRING HILL, Fla. (WFLA) – Carol Jean Murphy opened the mailbox last week to find disturbing news: the IRS thinks she’s dead and won’t process the tax return she filed in February.

This is the third tax year Murphy says this has happened. The instructions on the IRS letter direct her to the Social Security Administration to get documentation proving she’s not actually dead.

“I just don’t know where the problem lies because when I get to Social Security, they say, no, I’m fine,” Murphy said.

Each year, after sitting in a long line at the Social Security Administration office and jumping through a lot of hoops, the problem is fixed. But it pops back up again. So, Murphy knew she’d Better Call Behnken.

“I want to let you guys know that I’m standing here with her now, and she’s alive and well, and she wants this fixed,” Investigator Shannon Behnken told the IRS.

Better Call Behnken reached out to the Social Security Administration, too. A spokeswoman took Murphy’s information and said she will have someone call her to investigate and make sure their database is correct.

[Lurkinanloomin]

I’d let the IRS think I was dead and never pay taxes again..

[IgnorerOfLiberals]

Good problem to have.

[Mr. N. Wolfe]

Pay taxes...no. Vote...yes.

[Nabron]

Best guess-one of the illegals using her SSN bought it several years ago, and someone at IRS got confused.

[wildcard_redneck]

That sounds like a problem that doesn’t need fixing.

[Jamestown1630]

LOL!

But when they finally figure it out, will they come back and hit HER with fines?

[Boogieman]

Nah, more likely someone with the same name as her died, and when the Social Security Administration updated their death index, they marked the wrong person as “deceased”. The IRS checks tax returns against that SSA database, and voila, the tax return is rejected.

[fhayek]

Of course. When they finally figure it out, it will be her fault that she is not dead.

[Jamestown1630]

How do you prove you’re ‘alive’, anyway?

[Eagles6]

“Sorry Ma’am,
But the only way to fix this is to actually make you dead.”

[Gene Eric]

“It’s says here that you’re dead. Please stop calling me. You’re freaking me out.”

[Bayard]

After the second time they think you died, I’d say that’s on them.

[Jamestown1630]

Biden thinks that we can have 50% of cars ‘electric’ in less than a decade; but the government can’t get tech that’s smart enough to figure this sort of thing out?

[TigersEye]

I’d let the IRS think I was dead and never pay taxes again..

Especially since Social Security says she's alive and still sends her check.
Best government screwup you can hope for.

[Boogieman]

Government by and large doesn’t get “good tech”. They’ve got a whole bunch of piecemeal systems patched together with sticky tape, each system designed to the specs of a different panel of government bureaucrats who don’t know anything about software.

Just look at the debacle with getting the rental assistance checks out. The government probably has fifty different pieces of software to send out checks, from Social Security, to the IRS refunds, to government paychecks, payables to contractors, etc. Yet none of those could be adapted to this new task the government decided to take on, so they have to come up with some rushed clusterfudge of a system on a few months notice and they screw it up. Same with the Obamacare portal.

[Retain Mike]

During my time of employment, I spent twenty years managing federal grant programs for a city and for a college. One of my ongoing responsibilities was administrating the agencies providing these programs. Much too often the bureaucrat in one cubicle was unable to communicate with the bureaucrat in the cubicle one floor down. The bureaucrat in the cubicle I was talking to was unable to proceed if I failed to use the exact words found in his/her job description. In those two decades, I met one person who immediately understood what I said, took charge, and solved a complex problem. I wrote a letter to the Secretary of her department, and she received a commendation.

I am not at all surprised that the IRS does not have a limited access to the Social Security allowing it reconcile information on a need to know basis.

[Jamestown1630]

No wonder my family’s dealings with Social ‘Security’ have been so harrowing...

[NonValueAdded]

I had to help a client with the same problem. SocSec had it right and her checks kept coming. I suspect a programming error on the IRS side of the interface.

[House Atreides]

“…I am not at all surprised that the IRS does not have a limited access to the Social Security allowing it reconcile information on a need to know basis.”
********************************************************
Expect near intractable difficulties when you need to correct a wrong date of birth on Social Security records. Had a friend who successfully corrected hers on SSA’s records but IRS still doesn’t recognize the correct date of birth. But IRS instead wants her to use her old, wrong date of birth to verify her identity.