Mediaboss Marketing

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It was mid-February of 2002 and I was a naive 23-year-old on the tail end of financial catastrophe. I had just shut the doors to my web design business post-dot-com fallout. It was time to file my personal income taxes and (hopefully) salvage what I could from my business losses. I diligently and honestly prepared my 1040. I had no assets, I had no taxable liability and I was short any working income. I was scraping by, using the lint in the bottom of my purse to pay the bills. I was desperate for my windfall tax refund of $962 that year. When it came, I was able to catch up on some medical bills. I thought my dealings with Uncle Sam were over until 2003. I never dreamed about what would happen next.

June 2002

It was like any other sunny June Texas day. I was checking the mail, rifling through my bills and advertisements when I noticed a rather nondescript letter from the Internal Revenue Service. It did not come certified mail, nor did it have any particular markings on it, so I didn't pay it much mind. Regardless, I was baffled as to why Uncle Sam was sending me anything at all, so I opened it, unprepared for its contents.

But It Wasn't an Audit

The Internal Revenue Service wasn't auditing me, they were billing me $5,314. Their claim was that I did not disclose all of my self-employed working income and thus, had a massive tax liability. To make a bad situation worse, they were giving me 30 days to pay the sum in full or make payment arrangements, or they were going to start charging me interest -to the tune of 18 percent APR.

What to do?

I called the Internal Revenue Service and spoke with a less than helpful representative. They had no interest in helping me decipher a mistake; they just wanted me to show them the money. I repeated my calls daily, for over a week, before giving up and seeing professional help.

I took my boxes, receipts and returns for the last three years into a CPA I found by word of mouth referrals. My Internal Revenue Service clock was still ticking and my blood pressure rising with each call to the field office. Unless I had a check in my hand, Uncle Sam wasn't interested in anything I had to say.

Upon review of my returns, the CPA was able to file an amendment to my 2001 income tax return, reducing my taxable liability from $5,314 to $1,349. I had to make payment arrangements with the IRS and wound up paying over $2,700 with interest over the next year, but I (eventually) got them off my back.

From then on out, I never filed my taxes without the umbrella of professional support, but I have also never received another nasty gram from the Internal Revenue Service. If $100 a year in tax preparation fees keeps Uncle Sam happy and off my back, color me a no longer unhappy taxpayer.

Read more:
First Person: Confessions of an Unhappy Taxpayer