Lets start with the federal government! I recently had the experience of the IRS sending me progressively angrier letters via an obviously automated process cl

Lets start with the federal government! I recently had the experience of the IRS sending me progressively angrier letters via an obviously automated process claiming I didn't pay taxes last year. As it turns out, they had record of receiving the payment in the exact dollar amount, and had record of us filing in the exact dollar amount, but they did not apply the payment to the debt in question. We wrote several letters (which we know they received) and tried calling, but its not possible for citizens to actually talk to a human, via any channel, even when the IRS is imminently threatening to put a lien on your house! Of course, the IRS actually staffs a number specifically for attorneys! It cost us $980 to pay an attorney to call the number, conspicuously ~$20 shy of the retainer to convince the IRS to move the bits from one row to another. Naturally, we did not find that out until we had paid the retainer! TLDR: send payments to the IRS under the primary's SSN (first listed) when filing jointly