IRS: apology due?

A while back, I blogged about the IRS sending me two identical letters -- a month or two apart -- asking me to re-send my 2003 tax return. At the time, it was just a noosy (short for ''nuisance'').

However, while I was in Cranberry, they sent me a sizeable refund check, for that year's tax return. Hoo-kay...

Now, I'm pretty sure they already paid me. But I can't swear to it. Usually I'm insanely tight on my record-keeping. But, the time the refund check would've arrived is during the period when I was moving from Seattle to Brisbane: I lived in three different places within a three-week period, and was generally shifting receipts, bills, and change-of-address forms from one box to another.

(Side note: Again, I'm usually very good with household paperwork. But one of the things I dislike about moving is that the ''usual place'' for putting things (e.g. bills to pay; incoming bank statements) dissappear, and you have to re-definine new ones. And during the transitional period, there may not be a good, designated place: these things develop as you've lived somewhere for a while.)

So, I was out two or three bucks postage -- but received a check for several hundred dollars. Fair 'nuff.


--GG