Dealing with the Georgia Dept. of Revenue

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m not putting this in the Pit, because I want to stay calm and not curse.

Basic timeline:

April 1991
For reasons surpassing understanding, I am married. I file a joint return (Form 500) for GA State income tax for the year 1990. The amount we’d paid out of payroll taxes was short by $356. I send in the return and a check for the amount.

At the GA Dept. of Revenue, a clerical worker mistypes my Social Security Number. The return is filed away under the wrong SSN. (Let’s say my SSN is AAA-AA-AAAA; they type AAA-AA-AABA.)

1992-2006
I continue to pay my taxes every year. Usually I get a small refund from the state.

2006
I get a letter from the Dept. of Revenue, stating that the 1991 tax return for the person with Social Security Number AAA-AA-AABA has money owing on it. The amount is $600 plus accrued interest for 15 years, making $1500.

I stare at the letter for some time. They’re trying to collect from 15 years ago? Wait – that’s not my SSN. I call the GADOR and tell them it’s not my SSN; they must want some other dude.

I don’t hear from them for months. I’m then told that they misplaced the return for 15 years because of the wrong SSN, but it’s me. And they want money.

It seems patently absurd to me. In July 2007 I write a letter to the head of the Collections department, and get back – nothing. For a year and a half, nothing. I figured they’ve dropped it. Then –

December 2008.
GADOR calls me. They want their money. They say they never got a letter. No explanation for the year and a half of silence.

I call GADOR and find that the woman who was the adjuster on my case in 2007 is now a supervisor. I speak to her, but make no headway, and finally – just to try and get it out of my life – agree to make payments. Another monthly expense, and an unfair one.

However, after that three things happen:

  1. I lose my job. No income.
  2. I come across a copy of my 1990 return. It shows that the amount was $356, not $600. And, I’ve got no doubt that I sent a check back in 1991.
  3. I finally get mad, and tired of being pushed around.

No business could possibly operate like that: “Hi! We just decided you didn’t pay us fifteen years ago! No, we don’t have to prove it. We want you to pay up, plus interest for the fifteen years during which we forgot to bill you!”

Today I’m going to try and get the woman on the phone again. I’m planning a defense consisting of these points:

  1. I’m not going to pay because I already paid. I do not leave taxes unpaid. I sent a check in 1991; possibly it was lost by the same incompetent person who misfiled the return.

(Unfortunately I can’t prove that I paid. I don’t have check records from 1991. But I always pay.)

  1. Even if I did owe, which I don’t, the amount involved was $356, not $600. That they’ve got that basic fact wrong makes their whole case suspect.

  2. Even if I did owe either $356 or $600, which I don’t, the accrued interest is their problem. It’s entirely their fault that the return was misfiled, and for fifteen years they never contacted me.

  3. Even if I did owe money, which I don’t, there’s a three-year statute of limitations on tax assessments. Can they really come after me after saying nothing for a decade and a half?

Tax attorneys cost about $200 an hour; not an option. I just want this to go away. Anybody think I’ve got a chance?

2

  1. I share your pain.
    (I’m trying to find out if I need to pay taxes on a new savings account. Apparently there’s a 10 week backlog at my local office. I am told to send a letter. After a while, I get a reply saying only that my letter has been received…)

  2. Sadly you may need expert advice.

  3. I think your case is weak anyway because as you say:

  • ‘I … finally – just to try and get it out of my life – agree to make payments.’
  • ‘Unfortunately I can’t prove that I paid. I don’t have check records from 1991.’
  • ‘But I always pay.’*
  • ‘I do not leave taxes unpaid.’*
  • ‘the accrued interest is their problem’.**
  • ‘I just want this to go away.’**
    *I am not a lawyer. But these will be laughed out of court.

**No. Sadly it’s your problem.

3

Thanks for the confidence-booster. I’ve still got to try.

4

I’m not sure I understand how they can say that YOU owe the taxes if that’s not your SS number.

You might want to call your bank. They might still have a copy of the original cleared check.

(I am not a bank teller or in the banking field.)

5

Thanks; I’m gonna try that, though I’ll be surprised if they have anything from 18 years ago. (Also, I don’t know whether it was my check or my wife’s check; I just know I’ve never gone around owing taxes. It’s very seldom I’ve had to send a check; usually I get a refund.)

6

Well, that’s that. I’ll be paying the money I don’t owe, to incompetent bureacrats, at a rate of forty buck a month for years to come (including interest that has accrued solely because of their incompetence). I had to make an agreement, or else I was going to suffer a brain aneurism.

At least the emotionless woman I talked to agreed to keep it in the DOR instead of sending it to a collections agency. But she would not admit that anything was their fault. Yes, somebody employed by the Dept. of Revenue mistyped my SSN in 1991, and yes, they went 15 years without informing me that I owed them any money, but, no, somehow they didn’t make a mistake or do anything wrong.

Damnit, I’m a tax-and-spend liberal, but it’s frustrating when a bureaucracy can do things to people that a business couldn’t get away with, and the ordinary citizen is virtually helpless. I could hire a tax attorney and maybe get it dropped – and pay several times the amount in legal fees.

I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in other areas of my life, most obviously my girlfriend, the love of my life. So it balances, I guess.

7

First, never to anything with the government by phone. Send registered letters. make sure you put in writing that your SSN is AAA-AA-AAAA, not AAA-AA-AABA.

Second, contact your bank and see if possibly they have retained your statements and check images from that year.

Third, keep moving up the chain of command. Everyone has a supervisor.

Fourth, contact your local state representative and ask him to get involved. But try to get as much documentation as you can before you go there.

Don’t give up.

StG

8

Your bank will almost certainly have a record of the transaction (assuming your account is still open), if not the check itself.

Otherwise, the GADOR will have a record of Check X from Routing/Account Number XXXXXXXXXXXX in the amount of $XXXXX, even if it isn’t attached to your file. By now, they will probably be searchable by account #.

Call GADOR and tell them you need to request copies of records- the Fed charges $50ish for a copy of a single years’ tax return and payment record, so their fee will be similar.

9

Is it just me, or does GADOR sound like the name of some vast, slow, city-destroying monster? :slight_smile:

10

You need to call or send a letter to your state congresscritter. Or senator, whichever has the best constituent support office. Not whichever one you agree with the most, the two state reps whom I (politically) hated with the most burning passion had the number one and number two most helpful constituent support in the known universe.

In general, the Georgia DoR is pretty responsive IME; I dealt with them several times when I was in general practice. But you are not going high enough up the food chain.

FTR, you probably don’t need a lawyer at all if you can manage to keep your cool – but if you can’t do that, you want one. You probably don’t need a tax specialist (unless this story is a lot more complex than it appears). Call the Atlanta Bar Association and ask for a referral, they have a free referral program that gets you a free consultation; or call the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation and ask about the Saturday Lawyer program.

12

I can’t imagine that hiring an attorney over $1500 is worth it.

13

Zombies don’t pay taxes, and Baldwin was banned.

Thread reported.

14

Since this thread is old and the OP is banned, I’m locking this.