Illinois taxpayer 'shocked' when IRS returns check

CHICAGO (FOX 32 NEWS) - The Illinois Department of Revenue Headquarters in Springfield is a six-story building that stands out for its glass atrium structure, but apparently, it doesn't stand out enough, as one Illinois taxpayer found out a few weeks ago.

“I was shocked. I was flabbergasted, and I was angry.”

The taxpayer, a health care professional from Chicago, mailed her tax check to Springfield for a September payment but the letter came back with that familiar yellow label,  " return to sender. attempted. not known. unable to forward."

A check she sent to the IRS in Cincinnati was returned because the IRS center there couldn't be found either. She double-checked the addresses, then went to a downtown post office, where nobody could explain why two huge government agencies could not be found.
 
“They did say at the post office, ‘We get these all the time, of course we know where these letters go.’ And I thought, ‘well why didn't you know where these went?’”

FOX 32 showed the letters to postal officials, who declined to go on camera, but said the last four numbers of the zip codes had somehow fouled up an automated sorting system. The spokesperson called it an "isolated anomaly" which doesn’t mean other letters to the IRS and Springfield are not getting delivered.

Illinois currently faces a budget deficit of almost $8 billion, and one state legislator said mistakes like this one don't help.

“It's embarrassing. I'm an Illinois resident. How does this happen? When you're trying to pay your bills and you can't even pay because the post office screws it up. I mean, how much lower can we get?” Rep. said Jack Franks (D) McHenry County.