I would burn my shiat to the ground before I let the IRS take it. Then I would make them toss me in prison and pay for my upkeep. I mean hell, if you are going to lose it all anyway... why not?

This is why I think we need to move to ditch income taxes and all other taxes... and just move to a national sales tax that covers it all. Hard to avoid the tax if its right there at the register. Also hard to hide just how much you are TAKING from people if its right there at the register too.

Just another example of how incompetent the public sector is compared to the private sector; Bank of America wouldn't have taken 20 years to fark these people over, they get that shiat done fast.

Emeraldstar: I would burn my shiat to the ground before I let the IRS take it. Then I would make them toss me in prison and pay for my upkeep. I mean hell, if you are going to lose it all anyway... why not?

This is why I think we need to move to ditch income taxes and all other taxes... and just move to a national sales tax that covers it all. Hard to avoid the tax if its right there at the register. Also hard to hide just how much you are TAKING from people if its right there at the register too.

I think you need to do some reading on the Greek financial crisis.

ShawnDoc: From reading the whole article it seems both sides need to eat a bowl of dicks. The article is one sided, told from his perspective, and even then it sounds like he brought a lot of this on himself. He didn't pay his taxes for 3 years in the 80s, didn't respond until after it was too late to appeal. And then did the same exact thing AGAIN in the 90s (the way it was written it wasn't exactly clear, but that's what it sounded like).

He declared bankruptcy. Twice. The IRS kept pursuing him. That`s very difficult to defend under any circumstances.

I always wondered why the word "service" was part of the IRS.

Then one day, I overheard two farmer making plans for having a bull "service" a cow and I thought, "AH-HA! THAT'S IT!"

FTFA: "Over the years, he's loaned friends thousands of dollars to pay the mortgage, to buy a car or just because times were tough. Sometimes he didn't get the money back."

So, instead of paying his taxes, he handed out money while bankrupt? Smells like bullshiat in here.

Bill accumulated more debt with the IRS for 1999, 2000 and 2001 - another $70,000 - while he was in bankruptcy. He says he paid off the original debt, but there was a dispute over that bill and penalties mounted there also.



Bill.... you got some 'splaining to do....

/the article writer certainly glossed over that part

The company he worked for had to make the payments on his mortgage and his bills.



//i can has job at that company???

Hey William "Bill" O'Callaghan - you may want to back away from the meter... it looks like you're getting just a bit too close to it.

I don't mean to say that this guy is a business genius, but the IRS really looks like fark-holes in this case.

Yoyo: I don't mean to say that this guy is a business genius, but the IRS really looks like fark-holes in this case.

Actually the IRS is really quite flexible if you show you are in any way willing to make a deal that is workable, it sounds like the guy is a bit of a dick and didnt think he 'owed' the IRS anything and was belligerent in dealing with their lawyers.

If you have assets worth losing seek an tax lawyer/attorney and contact the IRS.

/file for bankruptcy 1x and you are fiscally irresponsible or had some serious medical bad news
//file 2x and chances are you are sleazy
///for the record i think trump has gone that route 4x

RatMaster999: FTFA: "Over the years, he's loaned friends thousands of dollars to pay the mortgage, to buy a car or just because times were tough. Sometimes he didn't get the money back."

So, instead of paying his taxes, he handed out money while bankrupt? Smells like bullshiat in here.

I doubt he paid the gift tax on that either.

This guy is an investment banker?....wouldn't be touching my measly little stash.

So when he was 33 he was making enough scratch to owe $55,000..he didn't pay that, or the 2 yrs taxes after that. He declaes bankruptcy and thinks the judge wiped out the tax bills, but he still owed it.

And that's it.. That's where the problem starts. So was the debt wiped out or not? Who farked up?

Sounds to me like the guy is just evading, sorry..

Just imagine what he was like as a rich 33 yr old investment banker, or a 42 yr old investment banker marrying a 22 yr old...

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh feel better?

illisium: He declared bankruptcy. Twice.

Didn't sound like he had no money though.

You can't just use the word "bankruptcy" as a way to avoid responsibility. You're supposed to actually be bankrupt, i.e. have nothing left.

Emeraldstar: This is why I think we need to move to ditch income taxes and all other taxes... and just move to a national sales tax that covers it all. Hard to avoid the tax if its right there at the register. Also hard to hide just how much you are TAKING from people if its right there at the register too.

Yep, you'll be taking from hardworking folk...and not from the people who can afford to stash their money in the Cayman Islands for an indefinite period of time.

/The reason why you're poor is that YOU FARKING SUCK AT MATH, YOU DOLT!

Hard to suffer through stories like this. tl;dr

The IRS is not fun to deal with. It's why I will never accept a 1099 job again. Not even sure if that is related to this story, but I know I was fortunate to only owe a few thousand dollars. That was one hell of an uncomfortable time and I was never late in payment and it all ended in less than 6 months. I can only imagine what decades would do to someone's sense of well being.

Among all the lessons I learned as a kid, including how to build up credit while in the Boy Scouts, it was how vindicktive the IRS can be. There may be lots of jokes surrounding this statement in particular, but if you ever get behind with the IRS, they love you long time.

/ah, me so horny...me long you long time...ha!

I have a tax debt of $9000, the tax office said I should consider bankruptcy, even when I offered to pay it off. they wanted the payment in one go, or in 6 months, neither which was possible for me.

spent quite a few hours on the phone, talking to quite a few people before they would allow me to pay the debt off as I could afford.

$9000 is pocket change for the government, but it's a big deal for me.

bankruptcy would net them $nil, at least this way, they get some steady income.

smadge1: I have a tax debt of $9000, the tax office said I should consider bankruptcy, even when I offered to pay it off. they wanted the payment in one go, or in 6 months, neither which was possible for me.

spent quite a few hours on the phone, talking to quite a few people before they would allow me to pay the debt off as I could afford.

$9000 is pocket change for the government, but it's a big deal for me.

bankruptcy would net them $nil, at least this way, they get some steady income.

Don't believe you.

I'm all for hating the IRS, but it sounds like Bill needs to pay his damn taxes.

Note, he didn't pay his taxes, reported a loss of $112,000 the new year (cause a loss is "free money" tax wise), then didn't pay his taxes again.

pedobearapproved:
Don't believe you.

wow, what part don't you believe?

She was in her early 20s and worked at her dad's engineering company. He was an investment banker in his early 40s and worked on Wall Street.

They began dating, and she found him his money his debt incredibly interesting.

pedobearapproved: Don't believe you.

my bad, I forgot the /CSB tag

I'm all for farking over the IRS...
But, I'm extra all for farking over dumbshats who deserve it.

/pretty sure this dumbshat had it coming.

Rtfa.



Good morning, Farkers! Happy Saturday. (:

Frow:
I doubt he paid the gift tax on that either.

Why would he pay gift taxes on loans? Plus, if they don't pay him back, there are ways to use uncollectible loans as offsets to income.

Portraying the IRS as some immortal boogie man isn't very productive. Once you set aside the couple that has a history of not paying their taxes, the villan here is their lawyer who cant seem to get this straightened out after years.

The IRS is doing their job, badly, but they are doing it. The couple seems to have made good on their debts racked up over the years. The lawyer was hired to fix all of this and appears not to be very good at his job.

smadge1:
I have a tax debt of $9000, the tax office said I should consider bankruptcy, even when I offered to pay it off. they wanted the payment in one go, or in 6 months, neither which was possible for me.

That's odd - when I had one year where I owed them about that much, the first thing they said was "we can put you on a time payment program," and I paid them off over five years. I know a lot of people who ended up owing them large piles of cash. Some of them were in the $20,000+ range - and they all got time payment offers.

Did you default on a previous time payment program? That's the only way I know to keep from getting one.

cirby: smadge1:
I have a tax debt of $9000, the tax office said I should consider bankruptcy, even when I offered to pay it off. they wanted the payment in one go, or in 6 months, neither which was possible for me.

That's odd - when I had one year where I owed them about that much, the first thing they said was "we can put you on a time payment program," and I paid them off over five years. I know a lot of people who ended up owing them large piles of cash. Some of them were in the $20,000+ range - and they all got time payment offers.

Did you default on a previous time payment program? That's the only way I know to keep from getting one.

You're implying that bureaucracies act consistently and predictably in every case, and that all their actions are taken via a very logical, procedural course.

Having said that, this article seems to very quickly gloss over everything Bill might possibly have done wrong that it's difficult to say he's been a perfect angel all this time and dem mean men at the IRS are just being meanyheads over this whole little thing.

RatMaster999: FTFA: "Over the years, he's loaned friends thousands of dollars to pay the mortgage, to buy a car or just because times were tough. Sometimes he didn't get the money back."

So, instead of paying his taxes, he handed out money while bankrupt? Smells like bullshiat in here.

Precisely. He wanted to be appear to be "Mr. Moneybags" to his friends and family, and screw what everyone else has to do - pay taxes. This is the "I do what I want" mentality which is so incredibly prevalent in FAIL.

To all the trolls defending the IRS here - It doesn't matter what you "think" about Bill's bankruptcy. A 100% proper US bankruptcy court said "yup, bankrupt, good luck going forward". The IRS illegally ignored that, and the rest of his problems stem from the IRS's hounding him, not fiscal irresponsibility.

Or put another way, if the IRS comes to you tomorrow and says "what, you never got that notice 15 years ago? Bummer, BTW, write us a check for 30x your yearly income or we take your house tomorrow" - How many of you tax attorneys gracing the Fark threads could write that check, never mind would?

That said, sometimes, yep, it does come down to not knowing better - For example,


rev. dave : The IRS is not fun to deal with. It's why I will never accept a 1099 job again. Not even sure if that is related to this story, but I know I was fortunate to only owe a few thousand dollars.

Quarterly withholding. Nothing wrong with 1099 jobs (ie, virtually all contracting), you just need to actually pay the taxes expected on income with no up-front withholding.

But even in such a situation, still fark the IRS, because they make it as difficult and painful as possible to actually just pay them and move on, from dunning practices that would have any private collections company doing prison time to payday-loan levels of usurious penalties.

EnviroDude: It's Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama's fault

You said "Bush" twice.

pla: To all the trolls defending the IRS here... -

3/10

rev. dave: Hard to suffer through stories like this. tl;dr

The IRS is not fun to deal with. It's why I will never accept a 1099 job again. Not even sure if that is related to this story, but I know I was fortunate to only owe a few thousand dollars. That was one hell of an uncomfortable time and I was never late in payment and it all ended in less than 6 months. I can only imagine what decades would do to someone's sense of well being.

I doubt this guy has the conscience you do. That type of person tends to skate through life, not really feeling guilty about certain things. Probably contributed to the sense of entitlement which resulted in 1. His not paying taxes, and 2. Losing his lovely home.

When others don't pay their fair share of taxes - like the really rich, and this guy - the rest of us end up footing the bill for America's roads, police, fire fighting, national defense, infrastructure, hospitals (public), national parks, food safety, consumer protection, etc.

You don't go bankrupt to get rid of your bill with the IRS, you do it to have money to pay the IRS.

I went through this years ago. Took over the family business to find the old man hadn't paid in three years. Gramma was the bookkeeper and had died with everything in a mess. The interest and penalties were more than the original bill by this time. I decided to ignore it for a year.

I think the turning point was when a lawyer told me I the thing to do was make part of it fall back on the old employees; he had paid them cash without withholding as a regular practice. I thought about all these people that had worked hard over the years and about puked.

I got all bootstrappy and lived on dirt while working 7 days a week to pay them off. After a year I was about dead; and the bill had actually increased. I found a new accountant and he just looked at me after I told my story. We set up an offer of compromise meeting with the IRS, (which is probably what TFA talks about the thing this guy was too arrogant to go to). After I listed everything I made and paid for, we sat down and negotiated. This process gets you past the pitbulls at the IRS and gets you in touch with someone that can say more than no.

If these two had done this 20 years ago - today would have been non-news.

SkunkWerks: EnviroDude: It's Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama's fault

You said "Bush" twice.

He really hates Bush?

Sensitiveborderarea: I wonder why the government has to take the homes of American citizens when they can just have that private Jewish enterprise called the "Federal Reserve" run their printing presses a little faster to increase the rate at which they generate money from nothing, borrow some of that extra money, and use it instead?

Sir, you forgot to take your meds this morning.

Yakk: Sensitiveborderarea: I wonder why the government has to take the homes of American citizens when they can just have that private Jewish enterprise called the "Federal Reserve" run their printing presses a little faster to increase the rate at which they generate money from nothing, borrow some of that extra money, and use it instead?

Sir, you forgot to take your meds this morning.

For some, the idea that paper bills are actually printed (rather than being magicked into existance after much prayer and sacrifice by the Almighty Himself) continues to be a subject of endless fascination.

"Wait, so you mean they can like, print money?!"

Those who continue to find this subject mysterious after age ten never tried to pass off monopoly money at the local convenience store.

You don't want to a evade the IRS. They have pit bull/bloodhound mixes they send after you.

I actually pay a bit more in tax than I owe (basically not taking all of the deductions I can) so if the audit me they will have to write me a check.

I read the article. The guy is just an old-fashioned tax evader. Should have been paying his bills, as those late fees clearly add up. Sounds like he blames everyone but himself for that, too.

"They offered the IRS $113,500 to cover Bill's tax debt. The IRS kept the check for a year, she said, and then returned it.

Anna grew indignant. Why was the IRS unwilling to meet them halfway? It wasn't like they had $2 million sitting around."

$113k ain't halfway to two mill', honey.

Less biased version of the story in question:

Wall Street investment banker who ruthlessly forecloses on dozens of homes a year thinks he's too important to pay taxes. Learns the hard way that he's not. Finds out what it's like to have his own home foreclosed.

illisium: ShawnDoc: From reading the whole article it seems both sides need to eat a bowl of dicks. The article is one sided, told from his perspective, and even then it sounds like he brought a lot of this on himself. He didn't pay his taxes for 3 years in the 80s, didn't respond until after it was too late to appeal. And then did the same exact thing AGAIN in the 90s (the way it was written it wasn't exactly clear, but that's what it sounded like).

He declared bankruptcy. Twice. The IRS kept pursuing him. That`s very difficult to defend under any circumstances.

Agreed. He should have timely payed his taxes like everyone else. The sense of entitlement which says he should enjoy special privilege just because he's a Wall Street investment banker is totally indefensible.

The wife in the picture married a guy 20 years older than her.


that's just icky and tells me she needed a father figure sugar daddy.

When you owe the IRS $1000, $10,000, or even $100,000, they'll work out a payment plan with you. When you owe them $2 million, they come and take your stuff.

This is such a pathetic sob story.

rev. dave: The IRS is not fun to deal with. It's why I will never accept a 1099 job again.

What really sucks is the companies that abuse 1099's.
My wife, bless her, I love her dearly. Took a job early in our marriage where they didn't withhold taxes.
I found out at tax time 9 month later when they gave her a 1099. After contacting the IRS they sent out a form with 10 questions on it.
3 that I remember (hey it was 21 years ago)

Did she control pricing?
Did she provide her own equipment?
Did she set appointments/control her own work hours?

IRS told us these where the most important 3. Turns out she shouldn't have been paid as a contractor. It still cost us, but not near as much. On the plus side they audited the moron she was working for. That did cost him a ton of money.

TheGreatGazoo: You don't want to a evade the IRS. They have pit bull/bloodhound mixes they send after you.

I actually pay a bit more in tax than I owe (basically not taking all of the deductions I can) so if the audit me they will have to write me a check.

You might want to rethink that strategy.
I got on the audit list for a few years in a row. They said I owed them some outrageous amount and after countless meetings, faxes, and phone conversations, I somehow convinced them that they owed me money. My next correspondence stated that since it had been so long (I think they said five years) I would have to take them to court to recover anything. If I owed them, screw me. If they owed me, screw me. Fark the IRS.