Dept. of Kafkaland
Thursday, 26 June 2025 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rHumans? Hah! The IRS Needs No Humans!
Yesterday I spent 1 hour, 17 minutes and 54 seconds on hold with the IRS, before hanging up. This was after an hour of trying to set up an online payment plan; we owe for the first time in forever, but we figure we can pay it off in six months.
(Gentle readers, the experience I'm about to relate to you evolved overnight, and I've taken a step forward to get our IRS account. Good news, t least temporarily ... but I'm getting a bit over my skis. We'll resume in good time.)
The IRS site says you need to get an IRS account via a site called id.me. We headed off to id.me to get an account there that allows us to complete our IRS account signup. (Confused? You damn betcha.) id.me tells us to download the id.me app on my phone. I do so. I try to open the app and it says, "You don't have multi-factor authentication necessary to open the app." I hunt through many, many, many id.me site pages to trouble shoot. And hurrah - it does have a link with advice on how to get the MFA in order to use my id.me account.
Except ...
Do you know how to get the MFA in order to open your app? You have. to. open. your. id.me app. Which, as previously mentioned, states I can't open the app because I don't have MFA.
(Was that a knock on the door, as if a giant multi-legged insect wanted to come in and make itself comfy? I determinedly ignored it and pressed on.)
We decided we needed to speak to an actual human over at the IRS, and convince said human that no, we didn't want to be immediately re-routed back to id.me, because we couldn't find any link to actual humans there, would the IRS please help us pay our fucking bill? Cue the 1 hour 17 minute-yada-yada wait.
And now, Gentle Reader, Thursday dawns and with it, more understanding on my part of how to set up the MFA without having to faff around with the stupid phone app. Huzzah! I now have an id.me account connected to the IRS site! (Have I mentioned how ridiculously awkward the IRS site is? No? Well it is. Very awkward.)
Now all I have to do is upload some photo ID via my phone, because you can't do it via your laptop. Done! And take a selfie - yes, they called it - and it uploads automatically. Then you watch as your phone tells you to go to "the tab that's open on the machine you started the process with" which I'm only slightly paraphrasing.
I went back to all the IRS and id.me tabs I had open on my laptop. None of them indicated that my uploaded documents had been received. I did it again; still no evidence of the upload actually landing where it was supposed. What's more, it now tells me it doesn't recognize my phone number. That's the same phone number that allowed me to get into my shiny new id.me/IRS. The same number that was accepted, until it wasn't.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa - This is hell, and I am in it.
The final Thursday report: When I woke up Bob with his morning coffee, and he heard the latest installment of Kafkaland, he directed me to leave it be. He correctly deduced that my brain wasn't up to the battle today.
And there you have it. Our fun trying to get the government to take our money, dammit! (Cue Fry gif that I can't find as of yet.)
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Also, don't open the door to to the six-legged entity yearning to sit on my couch.r.
.
Yesterday I spent 1 hour, 17 minutes and 54 seconds on hold with the IRS, before hanging up. This was after an hour of trying to set up an online payment plan; we owe for the first time in forever, but we figure we can pay it off in six months.
(Gentle readers, the experience I'm about to relate to you evolved overnight, and I've taken a step forward to get our IRS account. Good news, t least temporarily ... but I'm getting a bit over my skis. We'll resume in good time.)
The IRS site says you need to get an IRS account via a site called id.me. We headed off to id.me to get an account there that allows us to complete our IRS account signup. (Confused? You damn betcha.) id.me tells us to download the id.me app on my phone. I do so. I try to open the app and it says, "You don't have multi-factor authentication necessary to open the app." I hunt through many, many, many id.me site pages to trouble shoot. And hurrah - it does have a link with advice on how to get the MFA in order to use my id.me account.
Except ...
Do you know how to get the MFA in order to open your app? You have. to. open. your. id.me app. Which, as previously mentioned, states I can't open the app because I don't have MFA.
(Was that a knock on the door, as if a giant multi-legged insect wanted to come in and make itself comfy? I determinedly ignored it and pressed on.)
We decided we needed to speak to an actual human over at the IRS, and convince said human that no, we didn't want to be immediately re-routed back to id.me, because we couldn't find any link to actual humans there, would the IRS please help us pay our fucking bill? Cue the 1 hour 17 minute-yada-yada wait.
And now, Gentle Reader, Thursday dawns and with it, more understanding on my part of how to set up the MFA without having to faff around with the stupid phone app. Huzzah! I now have an id.me account connected to the IRS site! (Have I mentioned how ridiculously awkward the IRS site is? No? Well it is. Very awkward.)
Now all I have to do is upload some photo ID via my phone, because you can't do it via your laptop. Done! And take a selfie - yes, they called it - and it uploads automatically. Then you watch as your phone tells you to go to "the tab that's open on the machine you started the process with" which I'm only slightly paraphrasing.
I went back to all the IRS and id.me tabs I had open on my laptop. None of them indicated that my uploaded documents had been received. I did it again; still no evidence of the upload actually landing where it was supposed. What's more, it now tells me it doesn't recognize my phone number. That's the same phone number that allowed me to get into my shiny new id.me/IRS. The same number that was accepted, until it wasn't.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa - This is hell, and I am in it.
The final Thursday report: When I woke up Bob with his morning coffee, and he heard the latest installment of Kafkaland, he directed me to leave it be. He correctly deduced that my brain wasn't up to the battle today.
And there you have it. Our fun trying to get the government to take our money, dammit! (Cue Fry gif that I can't find as of yet.)
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Also, don't open the door to to the six-legged entity yearning to sit on my couch.r.
.
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Date: Friday, 27 June 2025 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 27 June 2025 05:00 pm (UTC)