Boy do I know the that feeling.
My nightmare started in 1991. I had a Criminal Investigator from the IRS show up at my door. He said he was investigating my tax preparer. The tax preparer was recommended by a few "friends", he was a tax attorney, tax preparer. Turns out he was disbared as an attorney years ago for fraudulent tax returns. I used him for three years, not getting anymore money back then previous years.
Trying to make a long story short.....I ended up being audited for three years past and oweing a little over $15000.00, most of that was penalties AND interest!!
So I hire a real tax attorney from Park ave in Manhattan. One visit with this attorney and he said forget it, just pay them!!
He told me of a person he represented the previous year regarding oweing the IRS money. The guy he represented owed $32,000 after auditing his construction business. Did I mention he was an ILLEGAL alien from Grenada!!! Anywho, he closes up his business and gets a job as a dishwasher making minimum wage, he had no house, no assets, with only $1200.00 in a bank account. He told the attorney he was sending all his business money to his brother in Grenada all these years. So his attorney goes to court with the IRS and tells the court that his client is out of business, has no assets, no property and only has $1200.00 in his bank account. So the IRS settles for the $1200.00 in his banks account, figuring they would never get 32000.00 from him because he was making minimium wage and that he would probably leave the country!
My attorney told me nine times out of ten the IRS would waive the penalties and interest if payed within six months but he told me that I was fucked because I'am an American(probably not going anywhere), I had steady income and worked for the City, with steady income with good pay. So, if it came down to it, they would take most of my paycheck every payday until it was paid. In the end he did attempt to negotiate with IRS on my behalf but there final answer was I had to pay everything.
[B][BLUE]MOTHERF*CKERS!!![/BLUE][/B]