Rod's Blog

This is part 4 of our series on common tax problems – you can read parts 1 (Wage Garnishment), 2 (Bank Levies) and 3 (License Sanctions) here.

Here's part 3 of our ongoing series on the most common tax problems our clients bring us. You can read Bank Levies 101 here and Wage Garnishment 101.

Here's part 2 of our series on some of the most common problems our clients bring to us. Read part 1 here, and stay tuned for the next installment.

We're running a short series on some of the most common problems our clients bring to us. High on the list is wage garnishment – when the IRS withholds your earnings in order to pay tax debt. If your paycheck is being garnished, don't worry! We're here to help.

An article this week on TheHill.com reported that for 2013, the IRS gave up more than $16 billion in uncollected tax revenue according to a new federal report. That means for every five delinquent accounts, IRS agents only closed three of them.

The IRS has never been known as a friend to business. OK, that's putting it mildly. The truth is that the IRS has a reputation for being a giant headache for businesses... and that's the best case scenario. The IRS has caused countless businesses to shut down for a variety of reasons, and they've harassed plenty of business owners who weren't able to jump through every single hoop that the agency created.

You may have heard in recent months about a common IRS phone scam in which the caller claims to be an IRS agent and demands immediate payment. Unfortunately, this scam has cost taxpayers millions of dollars and is still going strong. As a recent WNDU.com article reports:

A tax dispute is every taxpayer’s worst nightmare. The IRS has a well deserved reputation as a ruthless and aggressive government agency, and you don’t have to look very hard to find a taxpayer who has experienced the misery of an IRS controversy firsthand.

The IRS has never been known for its reasonable, sensible approach to taxpayer mistakes. If you have ever faced an IRS dispute, you know that the agency will seize on the smallest mistake and assess huge penalties and interest. That’s part of the reason an IRS dispute is so stressful for taxpayers – because rather than helping taxpayers correct their mistakes and pay reasonable penalties, the IRS uses their power like a sledgehammer and assesses penalties so severe that many taxpayers simply can’t pay them.

The IRS is almost certainly the least popular government agency in America. No taxpayer enjoys sending their hard-earned money to the government, and even worse is the possibility of being audited and possibly penalized by the agency. As if that wasn’t bad enough, recent allegations that the IRS has unfairly targeted certain groups for political reasons have further weakened trust in the agency.