by Sadie Kay

Created on: January 12, 2008   Last Updated: January 13, 2008

How to deal with the Internal Revenue Service - Personal taxes Dealing with the Internal Revenue Service can be difficult, but only as difficult as you make it. For years I made it that way! Then I learned something interesting.

Being self-employed

Over the years of being self-employed I have had more than my share of dealings with the Internal Revenue Service. Most of it was painful. The Internal Revenue Service dislikes the construction industry, with good reason. I dreaded going to the mailbox, afraid of getting a notice from the Post Office that there was a certified letter that I needed to sign. This happened on a regular basis. Always they wanted money which I did not have. And, there was a deadline. of course.

Wishing it would go away

I would receive the letter, read it, put it away to be lost in the stack of papers on the desk. Out of sight, out of mind. Right? No, not really. It haunted me day and night. I just wished they would go away. Maybe if I just ignored them long enough, they would forget about me. I was such a small fish anyway, surely they had bigger fish to fry. Besides, they would just waste it. I needed every penny and more just to feed the family and pay a few necessary bills, on and on.....

Day of reckoning

The day of reckoning would always come. I would have to sign for that last letter, the one that said I had 30 days or else they would levy my bank account, my assets. (Meaning the house) I had an Internal Revenue Service Collection Agent show up at the house once to collect. He had just come from the court house where he had filed a lien against our home!

The teacher appears

One day as I took a letter from the mailbox from the Internal Revenue Service (this one happened not to be certified) I had a thought....I am tired of living this way. It was just a thought.

Within a few weeks we had begun to be friends with a very interesting man. We learned he was an Accountant and had worked for the Internal Revenue Service collection agency. After only a brief discussion (I was whining a lot) he began to tell me where I was wrong. Fortunately, I listened:

My biggest mistake was thinking it would go away if I ignored it.

It's their money, pay it. Matthew 22:21 - Render unto Caesar.....

They have deadlines and are serious about them. Respond in time.

Always respond by certified letter with copies of any documentation or past correspondence attached. (The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing)

You are not really dealing with a person, you are

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