credit card checks

You know those pesky checks you get from the credit card companies so that you can transfer a balance or pay something big off? You know, the ones that typically have some low APR? Well, like most of you, I shred those up and throw them away as soon as possible. But this last week, I had something big to pay off.

A few weeks ago, we got a letter from the IRS saying we owe a TON of money. I freaked out at first and thought it must surely be a mistake. But no, after digging around some big, we realized that our tax preparer made some grave mistakes from our 2007 take return and that indeed the IRS was correct. Much to our chagrin, our tax preparer was SUPER LAME and never returned any phone calls or emails about this mistake. At the very least, we just wanted some acknowledgement, an apology and an offer to make an amended tax return to the IRS--this was really reasonable and something almost every tax preparer does. But no, she just completely ignored us---how unprofessional. (her name's Denise Earl of Mobile Taxes---all you Seattlelites, stay away from her!!!) Fortunately, a coworker's mother is an accountant and she most pleasantly offered to help AND without being asked of her, she created the amended tax return we needed. Rock on.

Moral of this story is we ended up having to write a big check, and this was the one time we needed one of those credit card checks so that our bank account wouldn't freak out. The IRS installment plan is lame with huge fees and interest rates, and the opportunity to pay via credit card incurs some sort of 2.49% charge due to a legal ruling that the IRS can't pay for the credit card company charge (although I hear this may've changed this year and that you can deduct the cost of this in your return...note to self for years to come). Anyhow, couldn't find one of those checks and ended up just biting the bullet and writing a check direct from the bank. We dropped the check off Saturday morning....that afternoon, the mail came along with a "special offer from Chase". Ha. What karma.