Should I Re-Mail US IRS and Treasury Dept Tax Info?

May 2, 2013 5:29 AM

I live in (and am a citizen of) Canada, and have recently mailed important tax information to the US IRS and Treasury Department via the regular Canada post. Should I re-mail that information to ensure that it made it to the proper destinations?

I plan to include a covering note telling the recipients that this is an exact duplicate of the materials I sent before, and if their records show it was received earlier, to securely destroy this new copy. The reason, I will explain, is fear that the post offices (Canadian and US) might have lost the originals. (There are no original receipts with the original items, only forms that I filled out.)

Questions: Will this re-sending cause me any problems (currently, I have absolutely no problems with the US IRS or Treasury Departments)? Would it be a good idea to re-mail this material just to be sure it gets to them?

posted by mbarryf to Law & Government (5 answers total)

Do you have some reason to assume it has gone astray, other than general worries? I mean, these are two reasonably competent postal services. Can you check online to see whether there's a record of receiving it? (I can do this, but it may be linked to filing electronically, so not sure.)

Honestly, it would never occur to me to worry unless I got some kind of letter saying things hadn't been received. Again, is there some specific basis for your concern?
posted by acm at 6:04 AM on May 2, 2013

Can you not call them and ask if the original item was received? That'd be the standard practice.
posted by pompomtom at 6:06 AM on May 2, 2013

Like the previous posters, I'm unclear on why you suspect the material has been lost. If this is a case of "it's been a week since I sent the materials and I haven't heard back", then I'd advise patience; cross-border mail is pretty slow, and a one-month turn-around time isn't unheard of. On the other hand, if this is a case of "there will be DOOM if the materials are lost", then if/when you do send it again, you should send it via FedEx instead, which will give you tracking & delivery confirmation.
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:27 AM on May 2, 2013

We actually sent duplicates of some important tax documents to the IRS a couple of years ago, mostly to assuage our anxieties.

There's no real reason NOT to, but send them with delivery confirmation.

The IRS has pretty fast turnaround time for a huge bureaucracy - they were far nicer and more helpful than one is led to expect - but even if you sent stuff on time and it's been a couple of weeks, they may not have processed it yet.

I'd say that if it will help you sleep at night, you might as well - when I do stuff like this, I just recognize that it is more about MY mental health than about vital need.
posted by Frowner at 6:31 AM on May 2, 2013

I realize I may be assuming the wrong thing, but if you were filing a FBAR with the Treasury (due to having overseas accounts) then you can verify that it was received by calling after 90 days (question 14).
posted by atlantica at 8:32 AM on May 2, 2013