This has been some week

Actually, this entire series of events took more than a week, but this past week has been particularly rough.

First we got word that we were going to be audited by the IRS for the year 2008. With a meeting scheduled, we worked hard to have all of our receipts and documentation together, to prove that we had presented our income and giving accurately and honestly.

Then we had a preliminary meeting with the IRS. At this meeting, the agent assigned to us said that our paperwork was very thorough, and that she thought we'd probably be told that everything was okay, and that we would not be required to pay additional money to the IRS.

This was reassuring, but turned out to be inaccurate. When the agent presented our papers to her supervisors, they disagreed with how some of the paperwork had been handled. Not that they didn't believe that we'd received and given away money as we stated, but that we might not have gone through the right paperwork channels.

This ruling meant that we would potentially owe thousands more than we've already paid, plus there was a suggestion that, since we did our paperwork the same way in other years, the IRS would potentially want to audit us for the years before and after 2008, back as far as they are allowed to audit. Just the thought sends chills up your spine, doesn't it?

That was the way things stood for a week, while Allen worked to get some better resolution to this issue. Lots of people were praying for us!

Allen spoke with three different lawyers. Two were lawyers who specifically work with Christian organizations, the third was the H & R Block lawyer who represented us to the IRS, for free, because we had used H & R Block to prepare the taxes for 2008. The three lawyers all agreed that the way we had handled the tax return should have been acceptable. The H & R Block lawyer wrote a letter to the IRS, explaining the manner in which we had obeyed the tax laws. The letter was delivered to them this morning. By late morning, we received unofficial word that the ruling was going to be changed, and that we should expect not to owe any additional money.

I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm feeling more hopeful than I've felt for a week, but I think, until I have a piece of paperwork direct from the IRS stating that we're in the clear, I'll still be feeling unsettled and a bit nervous.

Some weeks are like that, I guess. I just hope we don't have another week like this one anytime soon!