Why the IRS is not our friend.

This morning I decided I was going to be productive. I slept over 12 hours last night, and decided that must mean I was ready to face today. My first item of business was to come to school to finish filing my taxes. They were all filled out (I normally do them online) and all I needed was my checking account number for direct deposit. (Or so I thought.) I entered my checking account number, and got to the electronic signature page. This is where the problems began. It said I either needed my Gross Annual Income from last year, or last year's pin number. Hum, I'm sure I have both of those things somewhere, but not in Singapore. There was an 800 number to call if you didn't have access to either one, so I called. Of course, 800 numbers aren't free if you're outside the US, so I was paying to be on hold for about 15-20 minutes, listening to terrible music. When I finally got through, the lady started asking me the security questions. Now I figured this shouldn't be so bad, I should know the answers, and would be able to finish my taxes. It was not as easy as I'd hoped. First, they wanted to know my name and address for last years filing, no problem. Then she wanted to know what form I'd filed...um, I don't know. The program I use online asks a bunch of questions and then you answer them and hit submit...I have no idea if it was the 1040EZ, 1040A or 1040 regular or what. I explained to her that I wasn't sure, and since I didn't have it in front of me, I couldn't answer that question. Her next questions were "Did you receive a refund last year?" Yes, and "How much was your refund?" If I had the form that told me how much my refund was, I wouldn't be talking to her. Again, I explained that I had moved to Singapore, and that I didn't have access to that information, that's why I was talking to her. After a few more equally ridiculous questions she told me that I'd failed the security screening, and I could call back when I had the information. IF I HAD THE INFORMATION, I WOULDN'T NEED TO CALL!!! I was so frustrated when I got off the phone. I eventually did find the information I needed, thanks to Ruth, and was able to finally file my taxes, but by that point, I had had to start completely over from scratch, and decided being productive wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I went to the mall to grab lunch, because by then it was lunch time, and ran into a couple of friends from school. They invited me to join them painting clocks. It sounded a lot more fun than "being productive" so I just spent the last couple of hours making a really cute parrot clock. (I'll post pictures later...can't do that from school.) I'm feeling much less stressed now, and am heading to a birthday party shortly. I guess being productive can wait for another day!