Call me stupid, but I have never failed to pay my entire IRS tax bill. In my younger days, after the IRS said I made a mistake on my tax return, I even paid them for penalties and interest. Even though I have often thought that my tax burden seemed awfully high, I just felt that paying all of my taxes was my duty as an American citizen.
Now, I am confused and just a little angry. If you watch television at all, I am sure you have seen some of the commercials now playing. Tax relief attorneys and firms adverting relief from the IRS blatantly utilize real people testimonials that have caused me to think that I have been a chump my entire tax-paying life. Here is an example of what I”m talking about. A young man, perhaps 35, appears on screen and says with a big smile, “Hi, I”m Rob, from New York City. After not paying taxes for six years, I had an IRS bill of $35,000. Your ”offer in compromise” solution allowed me to settle for around $4,000. Thank you American Tax Avoiders.” I changed the company name to protect the guilty.
Excuse me, but not filing a tax return for six years isn”t some small oversight. In my layman”s legal opinion, it is an obvious and deliberate violation of United States law and the offender should be punished. He should definitely not be gloating on national television about how he bilked the United States out of $31,000 of taxes that his tax return, when finally completed, showed that he owed the government.
There are pages of online Web sites for tax attorneys and tax relief firms. They advertise that they will “Settle IRS tax debt for a fraction of what is owed, remove IRS tax penalties, stop IRS tax levies and tax liens and end wage garnishments.” I am not sure how or why these people have the power to get the IRS to provide all of these pardons involving legally owed taxes.
I am definitely no fan of the IRS. I have watched documentaries about how good citizens have been driven to financial ruin and even suicide, due to IRS harassment over trivial issues. There is a huge difference between the person who knowingly fails to file tax returns for a number of years and the person who makes an error on his return. It is easy to make an error on your tax return these days. The needless complexity of the U.S. Tax Code is ridiculous and perhaps a topic for a future column.
I hope that I am not alone in feeling that what these tax relief organizations are doing is horrendously offensive to the average American taxpayer. Most of whom have never asked for one penny of their tax debt to be deducted from their bill.
I believe there is a better way to handle situations in which people fail to pay their taxes. The government, instead of negotiating with middlemen, should stand firm on the amount owed and provide a long-term, extremely small-interest, payment plan.
With this plan in place at least the IRS would eventually receive everything owed, with interest. Also, it would stop the incentive for the rest of us to stop paying our tax bill and to eventually contract with a firm to negotiate a settlement
at a fraction of the real taxes owed.
Gary Dickson is the publisher and editor ofthe Record-Bee. Contact him at gdickson@recordbee.com or 263-5636, ext. 24.
