I suck at my job

I really do.


My job is to take calls from tax payers who have questions about the tax law.  You have a question, maybe "can I claim my granddaughter as a dependent?" and call to find out.  I am supposed to ask you some specific questions, discover you if you meet the criteria to claim the girl, and then tell you "yes" or "no" and why.  Give you the information, educate you as to why, and move on to the next caller.

Problem is, I can't do it.

In the process of taking your call I find out that you are a single person, low income, you sound scared (who isn't, calling the IRS?!), you don't really seem to know a lot about the tax law, and I suspect that you qualify for the Earned Income Credit and the Making Work Pay Credit, both refundable credits that would put some money in your pocket.  But I am not supposed to offer this info.  I AM NOT YOUR TAX ADVISOR!  I am here to answer your question, the end.

It's killing me, not to help these people.  So I find creative ways to phrase my questions so that I can tell you about the credits without just telling you.  In the course of asking the required questions I phrase them in such a way that you ask what it is, so I can tell you a bit about the credit, and then (if we're lucky) you ask if you can get that, too.  When it all works according to plan, I am such a happy camper.  But I have a feeling I am going to get busted for it someday. 

Then there was the combat-wounded veteran I talked to.  He called because money that was to be non-taxable was listed as taxable.  Come to discover, this is something that the courts ordered corrected TWENTY YEARS AGO and the computer programs still haven't been corrected.  I could tell him how to "fix" part of it on his tax return, but the rest - well, finally I had to suggest he call him congressman and senator to get it corrected.  The telephone number I had for him to call to get the other corrections taken care of was one that he already had called.  And their response was basically "sucks to be you."

This was three days ago and I am still steamed about it.

Every day there are people I talk to who simply need some guidance.  They need an advocate.  They need a person who will point them in the right direction.  They aren't looking for someone to do it for them.  They aren't looking for a free ride (although I get plenty of them, too).  They are just simply ignorant of the law, ignorant of their rights, ignorant of how to work through the system.  They want to do things properly, and they sure don't want to arouse the wrath of the IRS.  But they just don't know.

And I want to help them.  But it's not my job.  For every person I spend extra time sneakily finding ways to tell them things they don't know, I am making two others wait on the phone longer than they should have to wait.  It's a catch-22.  Either I help everyone a little bit but not enough, or I help a few people fully and make the others do without.

I'm not complaining about my job, or what I am supposed to do.  I completely understand that I was NOT hired by the US government to be a tax advisor to these folks.  But my instinct is to help; to offer them the full benefit of my knowledge and the tax code.  But that isn't what you all are paying me for.

Anyone want to pay me to be a tax advisor to the good citizens of this country who want to do it right but don't have a clue?