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A fraternity buddy of mine related a horror story he had
Posted on: April 10, 2025 at 21:15:39 CT
JeffB MU
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with the IRS some years ago.
He had gone up to see another fraternity buddy in Kansas City and on his last day they had gone out partying. For some reason he hadn’t run a tab and was paying for drinks with checks. When he got home he checked his answering machine, I guess I should have said it was several decades ago, he was shocked to hear messages from angry merchants who said that they had some checks from him that bounced. They demanded immediate cash payment + their bank fees + their own bounced check charges, and of course he would have overdraft charges from his own bank. He was even more shocked when he got to the end and heard his landlord say that he had several bounced checks of his and that he had better come down and pay them along with all of the bank fees and extra charges, in cash, of course.
He couldn’t believe it as he should have had way more than enough in that checking account to cover those checks. He also wondered why the landlord had waited so long to cash his earlier rent payments.
He called the bank and found out that the IRS had seized all of the money in his accounts. Whoa. He had called and talked to the IRS about a nasty gram very recently and they told him that everything was in order.
The backstory is that he had gotten divorced a couple of years earlier and made a mistake on his tax return based on his misinterpretation of something on his return. He was in commercial real estate sales, so it may have been a little more complicated than most. Because of his mistaken interpretation he overpaid a lot that year, but underpaid the following year by a slightly smaller amount. He was audited for the year he underpaid and when the IRS notified him of his error, he refiled for the prior year using the correct interpretation and was owed a bigger refund than what he owed for the following year for which they were now billing him. He called them up and explained the situation and the lady told him not to worry about it. The refund for the prior year would take care of the bill for the following year and he would end up with a small net refund.
He took her word for it, unfortunately, but got another notice in the mail some time later. He called the IRS again and was told the same thing by this agent as he was told the first time. Don’t worry about it, the two years would cancel out & he would be getting a small refund. That scenario may have happened again, I don’t remember, but he thought everything was in order until he listened to those angry messages.
He knew he was going to have to come up with some cash to pay everyone he had written checks to recently, but how was he going to do that since the IRS had confiscated all of his money? He was also going to have to get a tax attorney to represent him and having no money to pay him upfront might make things a little more difficult for him.
He was going to try and figure things out when went in to work on Monday but got another nasty shock when his boss called him into his office & closed the door. He asked him if he was having financial problems. He said they had gotten notification from the IRS that they were garnishing his income. He was on commissions and had recently sold a piece of property but the IRS was taking a bunch of it.
After more wrangling & back and forth with the IRS he eventually found himself in the office of an IRS manager higher up the food chain. He retold his story for what seemed like the thousandth time and the guy said, O, no problem, we can just do this & this and that and it’s all resolved. You are good to go, we’re taking off the garnishment and refunding the money we took from your accounts.
My friend was shocked at how quickly and easily it was resolved given the hell he had gone through every step of the way up to this point. He asked the manager how he could fix things so quickly and easily when he had met nothing but incompetence up to that point. He said the guy walked over to his door, opened it and told him to have a look. He said there was a big room full of big fat women and he started laughing. What a nightmare, and despite his own initial error it was mostly the result of IRS incompetence.
He had gone up to see another fraternity buddy in Kansas City and on his last day they had gone out partying. For some reason he hadn’t run a tab and was paying for drinks with checks. When he got home he checked his answering machine, I guess I should have said it was several decades ago, he was shocked to hear messages from angry merchants who said that they had some checks from him that bounced. They demanded immediate cash payment + their bank fees + their own bounced check charges, and of course he would have overdraft charges from his own bank. He was even more shocked when he got to the end and heard his landlord say that he had several bounced checks of his and that he had better come down and pay them along with all of the bank fees and extra charges, in cash, of course.
He couldn’t believe it as he should have had way more than enough in that checking account to cover those checks. He also wondered why the landlord had waited so long to cash his earlier rent payments.
He called the bank and found out that the IRS had seized all of the money in his accounts. Whoa. He had called and talked to the IRS about a nasty gram very recently and they told him that everything was in order.
The backstory is that he had gotten divorced a couple of years earlier and made a mistake on his tax return based on his misinterpretation of something on his return. He was in commercial real estate sales, so it may have been a little more complicated than most. Because of his mistaken interpretation he overpaid a lot that year, but underpaid the following year by a slightly smaller amount. He was audited for the year he underpaid and when the IRS notified him of his error, he refiled for the prior year using the correct interpretation and was owed a bigger refund than what he owed for the following year for which they were now billing him. He called them up and explained the situation and the lady told him not to worry about it. The refund for the prior year would take care of the bill for the following year and he would end up with a small net refund.
He took her word for it, unfortunately, but got another notice in the mail some time later. He called the IRS again and was told the same thing by this agent as he was told the first time. Don’t worry about it, the two years would cancel out & he would be getting a small refund. That scenario may have happened again, I don’t remember, but he thought everything was in order until he listened to those angry messages.
He knew he was going to have to come up with some cash to pay everyone he had written checks to recently, but how was he going to do that since the IRS had confiscated all of his money? He was also going to have to get a tax attorney to represent him and having no money to pay him upfront might make things a little more difficult for him.
He was going to try and figure things out when went in to work on Monday but got another nasty shock when his boss called him into his office & closed the door. He asked him if he was having financial problems. He said they had gotten notification from the IRS that they were garnishing his income. He was on commissions and had recently sold a piece of property but the IRS was taking a bunch of it.
After more wrangling & back and forth with the IRS he eventually found himself in the office of an IRS manager higher up the food chain. He retold his story for what seemed like the thousandth time and the guy said, O, no problem, we can just do this & this and that and it’s all resolved. You are good to go, we’re taking off the garnishment and refunding the money we took from your accounts.
My friend was shocked at how quickly and easily it was resolved given the hell he had gone through every step of the way up to this point. He asked the manager how he could fix things so quickly and easily when he had met nothing but incompetence up to that point. He said the guy walked over to his door, opened it and told him to have a look. He said there was a big room full of big fat women and he started laughing. What a nightmare, and despite his own initial error it was mostly the result of IRS incompetence.
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A fraternity buddy of mine related a horror story he had - JeffB MU - 4/10 21:15:39