I like this topic.
My story-I am on an "IRS Hitlist"....probably ever since I did several things to catch their attention years ago.
1. I bought back my time from ERS long after I had left state of Texas employment. - I knew this would be problematic, so I called the IRS and made sure I was filling out the form correctly. I bought the time with qualified money-an IRA, so paid $0. I asked for the IRS agent's first name and badge number, emailed myself the info. ...sure enough a few months later I received a nice letter from the IRS...I filled out the form, referenced employee info. and received a letter a few months later saying everything is ok.
2. I found the MCC years ago, while we were still in the apartment. I found 8396 on the back of the 1040, wondered what that was and boom! An annual tax credit of $2000? sign me up! We had the MCC for 14 years until I left Texas in 2018. $28000 in tax credits!!!!
3. One year I was doing taxes and realized we had about $5000 in tax credits, so I converted my wife's IRA to a Roth at the very rare 0% tax bracket.
Now, I get a nice "friendly" letter from the IRS about every other year complaining about something. One year they complained about my educator tax deduction on one side of the paper and on the other side chided me for not filing with e-file.
I am making so much money(for a teacher) up here in the Arctic Circle that I finally went over to the dark side about 8 months ago, and have joined the ranks of the masses who have too much $ withheld. I am passively aggressively doing them to death.
Here is an example. I had a personal record $39k deducted from my pay in 2022 going into the 457b, while at the same time withholding at the single rate. The only reason I was able to deduct over $30k is that I found the special catchup provision in our plan and used that.
Now, this year I have already increased my withholding as a response to the lower amount of $ withheld. I am sure you guys have noticed your withholding has gone down starting in January. I am going to drive the IRS crazy with kindness.
Ha!
Yes, I am an outlier. Over the top outlier. All of those years of having about 90-95% of liability withheld and writing a super small check to the IRS every April 15 and now it is time to go over to the dark side!