Well I have finally received the first letter from the IRS requesting additional documentations. We mailed our return on about March 23rd and received our letter on May 4th. The letter is nice form letter from the IRS saying they are examining our 2010 federal income tax return. We need you to provide us with additional information to substantiate the items checked below that you claimed on your return.
*Tax Credits
*Adoption Credit
They wanted the following info:
Part A-Verification of Adoption
If the adoption is final, provide one of the following:
Foreign adoption from a country tht is not part to the Hague Convention:
*Transalated decree of adoption from a foreign court or other document, issued by the competent authority establishing that a parent-child relationship has been created or
*IR 2 or IR-3 Visa
Please note we provided this information when we initially filed the return and also this just applies to foreign adoptions. There are other requirements for domestic adoptions.
Part B:Verification of Qualified Expenses:
In order to verify your qualified adoption expenses, please provide a written statement describing each expense. Also include copies of cancelled checks and receipts. Qualified adoption expenses may include.
*Court Fees
*Attorney Fees
*Travel expenses, including meals and lodging while away from home
*Re-adoption expenses relating to the adoption of a foreign child.
For our youngest son Caleb our adoption agency gave us a printout that had most of the expenses to the maximum credit listed, so we just need to find the information for oldest son Joey. On Monday May 9th my wife called the adoption agency and requested a printout on Joey and with the influx of calls about the credit they revised there letters in the database for all adoptions they have handles. They emailed us a copy of both Joey and Caleb’s letter listing all expenses paid directly though CCAI which is our adoption agency. These letters covered all, but between $500 and $1,000, so I had a little more research to do.
My first step was to round up all the receipts I had, and most receipts were actually on Joey for some reason.
It made it somewhat easy for me to track down the expenses as I keep our personal financial records on QuickBooks I knew the exact dates and how paid. I used this as my itemized list.
My next step is I went to our bank online and printed off all canceled checks that we used for the adoptions, which that would cover everything.
I didn’t do anything with the credit card receipts as of yet, because we don’t need that much substantiation.
I put the packets together for each adoption in order and faxed the documentation over to the fax number on notice as I figured that was quicker than snail mail.
We will see what happens next, please stay tuned.