Got a Tax Problem? IRS Has a Day for You
The words “customer service” were not exactly the first that sprang to Anthony Strange’s mind when he arrived at the Internal Revenue Service offices Saturday morning. Mortal dread was closer to it.
Purposely or not, the Federal Building--where the IRS is located in downtown Los Angeles--has the stony blank face of a modern fortress, made all the more foreboding by the perimeter of tank traps disguised as planters that surround it.
Strange had what is euphemistically called a tax problem.
In other words, he owed money. Lots of money.
He was among 150 or so people who showed up at the IRS on Saturday for what the agency calls Problem Solving Day. Initiated a year ago after revelations of abuses that the agency had committed in its fervor to collect taxes, the monthly Problem Solving Days are supposed to be occasions for citizens to cut through the brambles of red tape the agency is famous for cultivating.
The IRS makes available experts from its various disciplines in the hope that they can resolve a citizen’s problem on the spot or make definite plans to do so in the near future. This is a far cry from the normal four-to-six-week wait people often endure just for the IRS to locate relevant records.
One man said he had called every week for 10 months trying to find out if an amended return he had filed took care of everything the IRS said needed taking care of. Often in those calls, he said, he would end up on permanent hold and hang up.
Some IRS critics have dismissed the problem-solving efforts as little more than public relations stunts.
Strange, 39, of Los Angeles, hadn’t heard anything about the agency’s attempts to wear a friendlier face. All he knew was he owed money and every time he tried to put it right he ended up broke and owing more.
It began in 1985, the same year Strange lost both his electrician’s job and his father.
Those events were connected only by the fact that both involved Strange’s finances. His dad had always done his taxes and when he died, and the job disappeared, Strange failed to file a tax return that year.
“I lost my job and I didn’t do the right thing. Yeah, I was young,” Strange said. “And silly, I guess.”
This eventually led to a bill from the IRS for $1,400. Subsequent bills tacked on interest and penalties. Then more interest and more penalties. He hired a company to settle the claim, paying the company $900 and offering the IRS $2,000. This wasn’t enough, apparently. The total kept growing.
“It blew up and blew up and blew up some more,” Strange said.
The eventual, blown-up total was $26,000. When he first saw that number, Strange said he fainted. After that, he simply threw away anything the IRS sent him, figuring that bad news didn’t deserve being opened.
When Strange was lucky enough to find work, the IRS garnisheed his pay, once taking an entire $1,715 check.
Recently, Strange got a line on a good new job. Maybe that’s why he had hung onto the IRS’ latest bill. The guy next to him in the grocery line Friday night noticed the IRS letter sticking from Strange’s shirt pocket and asked him if he was having tax problems. Turned out, the guy was an IRS employee. He told Strange about Problem Solving Day.
Strange didn’t completely trust it, but he figured it was worth a shot. So he showed up Saturday, half-figuring, he said, he would be in jail by nightfall. Strange’s voice choked and trembled as he sat waiting for the tax examiner to call his name.
“I thought, all they could take away from me was my liberty. I didn’t have nothing else,” Strange said.
He sat in a waiting room full of tax problems. A woman was denied an exemption for her son for 26 consecutive years. She won the exemption every year on appeal but was tired of the hassle. Another woman was trying to crawl out from under her deadbeat ex-husband’s tax liabilities. One guy lost a house to the IRS, but got it back when they couldn’t sell it.
People brought interpreters, friends and families. They lugged backpacks, knapsacks and plastic bags full of paperwork, receipts and what in some cases looked like their life histories.
Most seemed resigned to bad outcomes. Some, in fact, left with things unchanged. A family couldn’t resolve bills stemming from a deceased father’s worker’s comp settlement. A woman who arrived on the verge of bankruptcy because of a crooked contractor was no farther from the edge when she left.
They found out that, as district director Steven A. Jensen said, “this is not an amnesty program.”
Some, though, fared better. Anthony Strange described the examination of his financial records:
“It didn’t take long,” he said, and laughed, realizing perhaps the sole advantage of not making much money. The examiner determined that the agency should have accepted Strange’s previous offer to settle. After 13 years of threats and fear, in two hours the IRS reduced the $26,000 liability to $1,000 and Strange virtually skipped as he walked out of the building.
“Oh, man,” he said. “Oh, man. It was worth the trip.”
The IRS has also established a toll-free problem-solving hotline at (877) 777-4778.
