Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 1, 1993                   TAG: 9309180306
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IRS ACCOUNTING

Because of a goof (hers) on her 1990 return, Boykin learned she owed the feds $582 in back taxes. The Virginia Commonwealth University graduate student agreed to pay it in $75 installments.

But each time she's sent the IRS a $75 check, the IRS sends her a refund check for $75, plus interest.

Could this be the middle-class tax relief President Clinton promised? Not likely.

In writing her refund checks, Boykin says she followed to the letter IRS instructions (and, of course, we all know how simple those instructions are). When refunds kept coming, she spent hours making calls to IRS offices in Richmond and Philadelphia trying to get matters straight.

Apparently, the IRS says, the snafu is because her husband's name and Social Security number appear first on the couple's joint-account checks.

Reckon that's why an official audit reported this month that the IRS can't balance its books? Why the Clinton administration is considering hiring private collection agencies to recover $241 billion in back taxes and other debts?

In Boykin's case, the IRS says it's trying to help resolve her problem. So far, the "help" has been to change its records to show she owes $604 instead of $582 in back taxes for 1990.

Perhaps Boykin should simply send the $604 in a lump sum, and wait for the IRS to return it. Send it along again, and wait for another refund check in the mail. The way things are going, she'll get a windfall in interest.

But better get it quick - before Clinton reinvents government and the gig's up at the IRS.