Christ, do the vultures come out quick enough when times get hard?

[Redstone]

Those "credit-card-debt-relief" commercials are disgusting enough, but the one I just saw about "Hire us to lower the amount you owe the IRS" was jaw-droppingly revolting.

One of the "client testimonies" they showed was a smug, Yuppie Scum couple who proudly proclaimed "We owed the IRS THREE MILLION DOLLARS and this company allowed us to settle for only one million."

Just a cotton-pickin' minute here. I'm not an accountant, but I figure if they owed the IRS three mil, they must have made about NINE MILLION BUCKS that year. I'll accept any corrections if my math is wrong.

My immediate reaction was "Fuck you. If you made THAT kind of money in a year, just PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES, would you?"

I'm a business owner, and given that I'm one of those, I am indeed a capitalist. But weaseling out of paying the taxes you owe, especially when you make THAT kind of money, is just fucking WRONG, not to mention unpatriotic. Because, you know who's going to have to make up that two-million-dollar difference that those assholes didn't pay?

You. All of you. And me.

Each day gets to be more depressing than the previous one lately, doesn't it?

Redstone

[Olney Blue]

1. Sounds like McCain's base.

[Why Syzygy]

2. They don't forgive taxes ..

they negotiate with the penalties and interest. The original tax bill probably wasn't lowered.

[47of74]

3. That's the one thing I don't like about Sirius sports/talk/news channels

That's the one thing I don't like about the sports/news/talk channels on Sirius. Those channels do have commercials and 95% of them are these credit card relief, ponzi schemes, and these tax resolution companies. Makes me glad my radio has a pause function so I can pause for a few minutes until the commercials are over.

[pitohui]

4. well those companies are bogus but...

that's a ridiculous leap to think they earned 9 million in a year because they had a tax bill of #3 million

such a large tax bill could be a snowball of mistake upon mistake -- my friend was just billed $80,000 and with interest and penalties in a few months time it was already over $90,000

my friend has nothing and so had to argue it himself

do you know what he REALLY owed?

zero

do you know WHY?

because the original tax bill from the IRS was a bunch of made up horseshit in the first place

the summary is, in 2001 he lost everything because of 911 and the stock market shutting down and then crashing, leading to the crash of enron and some other large companies such as worldcom,

because he owed NOTHING, he didn't file a return

because he didn't file a return, the gov't just looked at how much stock he had earlier in 2001 and pretended to believe that he, of all the men in america, somehow made money in the stock market this year

they figured he couldn't fight it because the paperwork was lost -- he was also a katrina victim

with great difficulty he was able to reconstruct the records and proved that he had no income and owed no money and finally the IRS agreed

i don't know the story on the $3 million couple, but quite likely they had a snowballing error, going back years, that grew cruelly beyond anyone's ability to pay

they did not earn 9 million in a year, you wouldn't be using those type of services if you did, you would hire your own tax atty

you would not assume someone guilty until tried in a court of law, don't assume someone owes tons of taxes and makes tons of money just because they receive an insane tax bill

this gov't deliberately preys on those who they believe can't fight back

[Redstone]

5. Oh, I know; I've had my own tangles with the IRS - that's inevitable when you

own a business. Fortunately, I have an attack dog of an accountant who told me, "Yeah, it's only 1700 bucks, and you think it would be easier just to pay them, but you don't actually owe them the money, so pay me $800 instead and I'll make sure they never audit you again." And he followed through on his promise. I don't mind paying the taxes I should pay, but the process should be fair and accurate.

But trust me, if you'd seen those smug fuckers (even given that fact that they're actors, and that the "story" they told probably never even happened), you'd get honked off as well.

Good to hear from you again; it's been a while.

Redstone

[pitohui]

8. google some of these tax relief "businesses" -- they do nothing except take people's fee

as you suggest it's probably the $3 million couple didn't exist at all, except as actors

my friend could not afford to hire anyone but he was tempted to call one of these, i showed him the research of some complaints made to some state atty general's offices about these "businesses" and he quickly realized that he would be better off doing it himself, if he couldn't afford a real tax atty -- and so it proved but it was very scary

here he was, with gov't demanding him to pay $90,000 in taxes and penalties on "income" in 2001, when he didn't have any income from that year -- AND they waited several years to pop up with this demand, obviously hoping that since he was a katrina victim that he would never be able to prove his case one way or another

it was extremely extremely scary, he had to take what tiny bit of money he had out of the bank because they were actually threatening to seize it

how was he supposed to eat?

and i'm utterly convinced that they KNEW it could not be correct, how could anyone sane claim that anyone made a profit on stock sales in 2001???? utterly mystifying! a glance at the news should have been able to tell them what he had to struggle to laboriously reconstruct

as it is he did not receive his "economic stimulus" because of the 2001 tax payment being in dispute when the checks were issued, so they cheated him of that little money for no reason except "because we can"

[liberalhistorian]

6. Those idiots have always been around.

It's just that they tend to really thrive during bad, desperate economic times so that you notice them more.

I've heard those IRS ads on the radio here in South Dakota for a long time now. Hating taxes is a way of life here. But don't ask them to give back the gazillions in federal farm subsidies that keep the farmer and ranchers alive and going and that keep the state afloat. Or the gazillions in federal disaster aid for blizzards, floods, droughts, etc. Or the tons in federal highway funds that keep many of the roads in this state going. That all comes from the magic money tree fairy, you know.

The debt collectrolls are really gonna get terrible, too. They already are and always have been, but in bad, desperate economic times is when they REALLY thrive and when they really get horrible, thinking nothing of taking what little people may have. Especially medical collectors.

[Redstone]

7. Dang, what a great post. Your refreshingly-honest comments, especially from a SoDak

point of view, are absolutley right.

Redstone