I owe the IRS $4,000
 

So I get home and the wife says she’s got bad news: A letter from the IRS saying we owe $4,000 on our 2018 taxes.

Apparently, she sent all the right paperwork to our tax preparer, but when the preparer returned the completed forms she forgot to include one. My wife failed to check that and signed the return (and got me to sign off, trusting her) and sent it off.

So here we are. My wife is afraid I’m going to divorce her. (I’m not.)

Anyone have an experience like this? Do we have any recourse? That 4 Grand could buy a lot of Super Bowl swag.

Is it a fine or is it just paying stuff that you would have paid anyway? I think you might be able to get them to forego some interest and maybe some penalties, but you won't get out of any actual taxes.

Taxes, penalty and interest

Can you send an amended return with the forgotten form included?

Taxation is theft

Also does your preparer have some kind of "we'll help if if we ****ed up" kind of guarantee?

May I suggest tearing it up ,throw it in the trash and go fishin

I'd definitely have words with the preparer.

Chuck some tea into the nearest large body of water and beat the shit out of every British person you come across.


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4k is NOTHING compared to what we have had to pay before. 37K was the most we have ever owed. That one HURT. Biggest return ever was 28k.

These two.

That’s what I’m hoping, too. Waiting to hear from her. Just wondering if anyone here knows.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

You need to up grade your cpa or start going to one if you don’t already

I'd be up that tax preparers ass.

Congrats on owing more than OP! Must have sucked. But this thread isn't about you.

This, if the missing form justifies the return she signed you should be good with an amended return. I've had that happen to me.

I know. Just trying to put things in perspective for him.

OP, I have to come up with $3500 for property taxes by next month. Sucks, but it's a reality we have to deal with.

Does this excuse you from giving her Valentine's Day crap for the rest of your life? Worth the $4k nonsense with IRS. Fair trade!

Thanks. We’ve got till March 11 to get this sorted out. Otherwise I’m gonna have to Mr. Blonde you guys.

It's a small price to pay for living in the greatest country on Earth. I'm sure our leaders in government will spend the money wisely and judiciously.

I got a letter from the state of CO saying that they had changed tax laws, so now I retroactively owed back taxes, fees and interest from a house sale 5 years ago. I called and got them to eliminate the interest but I had to pay the rest.

Letting his wife do his taxes is what brought down Al Capone, you know.

One year we sent Mo the Fed $ and Fed the Mo$......Mo took 4 months to send us back our overpayment. Fed demanded the shortfall in 14 days or pay a penalty

How is that even possible? Was the tax law change in effect 5 years ago when you sold and they are just now getting to your case to **** you in the ass 5 years later?

I'd contact one of those tax relief companies (I hear a lot of commercials for a place called Optima, but have no experience with them), or a tax lawyer, or maybe both. Either should at least give you a free consultation to discuss options.

And blowjobs on demand from the wife until further notice.

Well, you can try that last one..... :)

“Now it’s time for YOU to pay up, honey.”

I bet you could at least get them to forgive the interest.

Wait, so would you have owed anything if you had included the form? You can still amend the return if it's just a matter of correcting it.

They will give you longer than what it says on the form. You will have to call them and wait on hold for a long time to speak with someone. You should be able to do some sort of amended return, but you will need to call them and let them know. After you do the amended return, it will probably take them a little while to stop sending you the notices. The IRS is one big cluster****. They are seriously understaffed and none of the departments communicate with each other. We paid a CPA to do the taxes and he was the one that eventually corrected the return. It will be a pain in the ass dealing with these bastards, but it sounds like you shouldn’t owe any money.

That’s a very small part of it. $100 or something.

This too shall pass. God I hate taxes, I feel for you man. Serious.

I don’t remember exactly, but it must have been. We weren’t living in CO when we sold the house or filed taxes, and the house sale was the only income we were reporting. I think they changed the date of purchase needed to claim a certain exemption, and we originally did qualify but after the change were outside the window by like 6 weeks.

Tell the IRS guy you will let him put it in your wife's ass to make it go away. If he is gay you might have to take one for the team.

Give me money, rich man.

The IRS will never, ever, ever rescind interest.

If you, as a taxpayer, can show hardship (i.e. surgery, cancer, etc.) for filing late or making a mistake, they'll likely rescind the penalty.

Otherwise, pay as soon as possible in order to avoid further interest and penalties.

Yes, about 10 years ago had a 3600 tab for not paying capital gains on a stock sale. I called the lady in Philly and apologized, since it was my fault. She said “I never hear that so I’ll close your case. Have a nice day”.

This is SPOTT on, they don't care. Here is a cautionary tale. We found out we owed $10,000.00 for a penalty on an IRA loan I took out to put a down payment on building our house. Long story short, you have the length of your house loan to pay it back without penalty but the company doesn't have to set up a payment plan with you. It's on you. Long story short we owe and they don't care.

1) DO NOT hire one of the tv companies offering to bail you out. They want $2000.00 up front for you to fill out endless paperwork so they can submit it to the Internal Renal Service so
a) That can stop IRS calls, letters etc...
b) You can be set up on payment plans over a few years. (we are paying 200.00 a month.

2) NOW, if your tax preparer is not some discount deal they have the same number and can make the IRS call for you asking for a stoppage on your case and a new file on that year.
3) If they cant do that go to an reputable preparer that can immediately make that call and file your new file on that year. Just call around and ask if they can do those two things.
4) Calm down, it's scary but will linger on for years. It's not the end of the world and life goes on.

Good luck from a family that's been there done that.

Lock him up.

It was a pain in the butt when we did it. It took a lot of phone calls, waiting on hold for an hour to speak to someone and then being disconnected, speaking with multiple departments, etc. We only paid a small sum of interest to show that we were making payments, and we eventually got that back when filed the amended return. The CPA we used was basically worthless and we ended up doing all the leg work, even though it was completely his ****up that caused the whole thing.

I’d check with the tax preparer first to see if they will help and also confirm it’s taxes you legitimately owe. If it’s something you do owe and the interest and penalties are not much, probably not worth the headache to try something other than just pay and move on. Maybe the prepared will reimburse you for interest and penalties because of their error.

wow! A 1%'er on chiesplanet! Champagne wishes and caviar dreams!

I’d love to just have to pay 4K in taxes.....

On the right path here, but maybe suggest she give a blow job to the IRS to get you out of the debt OP.

You have no idea how poor I actually am. Yes, I have investments and rental properties, and our assets on paper are fairly healthy, but very little of it is liquid.

Regardless, I won't be eating cat food when I retire.

The guilt should be enough for weekly blowies for a while... (from the ta guy or your wife)

Beats $60K. Put it on a card.

payup quick

interest compounds daily

also turbo tax efile

Contact your tax preparer today.

Have them call the IRS on your behalf. They should forgive the penalty and interest. If not, your preparer should carry errors and omission insurance. I'd get them to cover the non-tax portion of the liability.

You're on the hook for the tax portion of the liability. If it is income tax (I imagine it is) and you can't swing the cash today the IRS is good about installment plans.

But I reiterate, make your preparer contact them. If you used some fly by night ****bag, find a better one and have them contact the IRS.

Good luck man.

Sucks.
My withholdings and estimated were short, wrote a check for the difference and penality.
They sent me another bill for 3k.
Snakes on a Plane
What ya gonna do?

Tractor dude makes sense. I said screw it and paid.
Pick my battles kind of deal

Get a CPA. Most tax preparers aren’t.

My tax preparer is a tax attorney. To keep the peace and not pay "let me look into it fees"
I caved.

Meh. There are good preparers that are Enrolled Agents or Certified Tax Preparers just as there can be shitty preparers that are Certified Public Accountants.

That may be. I’m a financial advisor and work with CPAs who don’t make mistakes like the one the OP described. You get what you pay for.

my gripe is a why do we have to do their job for them? if they are going to take taxes out of our income then they need to take the correct amount out the first time.

asking for a friend...
 

if the IRS makes no attempt to contact you for back taxes, what is the statute of limitations...

again, asking for a friend ROFL

I got a unexpected $5K tax bill last year. What can you do? The taxman will get his money one way or another.

I had our tax guy not do stuff correct for 3 years so they did an audit on the one year, found extra we owed and then audited 2 more years. Ended up owing 10k. Tried to fight it, my tax guy literally died during the process and the guy who took over his business refused to do anything with it. Eventually ended up needing to pay the whole thing. Fighting it just cost me more in interest, etc.

Good News and Bad News:

-Bad News is you still owe $4,000

-Good News is you can now PIIHB because she is so ravaged by guilt, she will do anything to get back in your good graces!

Strike while the iron's hot! :LOL:

Does his bush overgrow your yard?

What was the form that was forgotten? Was it a 1099? Or do you have any 1099s in general, included or not?

If so, did you maximize all of the possible business deductions you could? There are many that you may not realize.

You could probably chew up that $4k pretty quickly in deductions from cell phone, home office, travel, auto expenses, meals, etc.

For example, as long as you have a separate personal line (which could be Skype, Google voice, etc.) for home, the IRS will allow you to call your cell phone a business expense without worrying about splitting up personal vs. business use. 100% deduction. Just document that you have that personal line and you're set. If you pay $1200/year for cell phone and you're in the 25% bracket, that's $300 in savings, so that would bring your liability down to $3700.

Do you have a room in the house that is used for only business? The simplified home office deduction gives you a deduction of $5/sq. ft. This maxes out at 300 sq. ft. (or a $1500 deduction). If you have a space like this that's another $375 in savings, bringing your liability down to $3325.

Did you document (or can you now) mileage that was used for business with your car? Maybe you drove 2k miles for business, which at a rate of 54.5 cents per mile gives you a deduction of 1,090, which would result in another $272.50 of savings, bringing your liability down to $3,052.50.

Do you have kids that helped you in the business? If they're under 18, you could put them on payroll, and get a deduction for that expense. Since they're under 18 you don't have to mess with payroll taxes or anything, and they would $0 in taxes on up to $12k of income. Say you pay your 12 year old to clean your office, sort your mail, shred documents, lick envelopes, or any other task you can have them doing. Document their hours at a reasonable wage, and you can deduct it. Say you paid them $1500 in wages for the year, that would be another $375 in savings bringing your liability down to $2,677.50.

I could go on and on. There are all sorts of perfectly legitimate ways to reduce your tax liability that many don't consider, but it all depends on having a small business of some sort. Opens doors to all sorts of tax savings.

Amend your return, do as much of this as you possibly can with your CPA helping you strategically, and you can probably chew up the entire liability.

just don't steal her water :thumb:

I’d kindly request your CPA pay the penalties and interest.

As a tax planner and advisor (yes, I also prepare), your preparer could/should potentially compensate you for any penalty associated with the balance due, assuming the preparer made a mistake in this case.

However, before you pay the penalty portion on your balance due, see if your preparer is willing to write a letter to the IRS, or assist you in writing a letter to the IRS. The IRS typically allows a one-time courtesy write off of any penalty for taxpayers who are not habitual late filers, etc. Since you mentioned that you've never had this happen to you before, I would bet you are eligible to have the penalty removed. They won't remove the interest, so don't even go down that road, haha.

The IRS will never forgive interest. It's a waste of time to ask for it.

However, they will remove penalties. I explained how to go about it in a post above.

Most good CPA firms, mine included, usually offer to help with the penalty portion if the mistake is our fault

Taxation Is Theft. **** these criminals suing you.

LOL - What did I just watch?

He’ll save children but not the British children.

My wife would say it was my fault that I trusted her and get mad at me for saying that is stupid.

CPA here- a simple letter explaining it and that you relied on a tax preparer is usually sufficient to remove penalties. RockChalk above is right, you’re stuck with the interest 99% of the time since you had use of the money. Might be able to get that refunded by tax preparer, but YMMV.

"if you ever wanna be a Mexican cook well you otta, just don't drink the watta" - WIERD Al Yankovich

what schmuck gave this a thumb down? OBEY!

Easy solution is to do an amended return. Better yet have your tax person that ****ed you do an amended return. What form was it tbat she forgot that made you owe 4k?

Im pretty sure the best idea was to just throw it in the trash like it never happened.

ROFL and what system do you propose to pay for police, fire, roads etc.

Volunteers, just like the Americans who sign up to join our Armed Forces.

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that's about what I owe.

They get paid though, so bad example. Try again. So people that build roads are supposed to do that for free? Whos gonna pay for the material? Equipment? Not the people building the roads because they don't get paid, so they cant afford it.

People want to try to forget that the men that dumped that tea in Boston were not doing it because they hated paying taxes. They did it because they hated paying taxes to GB because GB wasn't using that money to improve the colonies and the colonies were expected to do what the king wanted them to do without being able to voice their concerns or have a part in deciding what was best for the colonies.

Taxes suck and they could figure out a better way to tax people, but they are necessary.