Sick to my stomach-owe 6K to IRS

[rachelh]

I just got a letter in the mail from the IRS stating we owe $6,000 in income tax from last year!! We dont make a lot of money and we already paid what our accountant said we owed when we filed. I have always got money back when filing - never once have I paid - let alone close to 8K (the money we paid already + what they say we owe now.)

And the kicker is it is due by Jan 9th! Wow thats a full week and a half! Now thats definitely enough time to come up with 6K! Seems they do let you enter into a payment plan but from dealing with things like this at work, they generally look at how much you make and THEY decide how much you can afford.

This is bad! I don't know how we are are going to manage this.

[Ceepa]

Ouch! I'd say get on the phone with your accountant ASAP.

[WatchingThemGrow]

That's NUTS! I hope your accountant can figure out what happened!

[mamaoftwins]

Ouch! I'd say get on the phone with your accountant ASAP.

Agreed. There may be a problem that your acct can figure out - we got letters from the state we now live in saying that we owed in excess of 10K in back taxes for 2003-2005. Funny thing, we didn't move here until the end of 2007. It took awhile to straighten out and we had to get our CPA involved, but it ended up that it was THEIR mistake and we didn't owe a penny. Only our time was wasted.

Good luck.

[Melaine]

OH NO....how could that have happened? I hope there is some kind of an explaination....my friend got a similar letter recently and nearly hyperventilated, but realized it was because her DH worked in a neighboring state. They had to get the two states to reconcile and realize obviously they would only pay income tax in one, rather than both, you know? So she didn't actually owe anything because tax had been paid already in the other state.... Hopefully some similar explaination will come up for this! good luck!

[rachelh]

Ouch! I'd say get on the phone with your accountant ASAP.

We already left him a message. I am trying not to think about it until we speak with him. Hope he has some good news. :praying:

[saschalicks]

We had this happen and in the end we did owe the money. We were able to get on a payment plan quite easily. They did not look at our income or anything. GL to you!

[lizajane]

this happened to us when my DH filed us jointly and the IRS thought my name was wrong. when i changed it, SS changed it by adding my new last name to the end, but without making it my last name. so they used my maiden name as my last name. we just file our taxes with my last name as "maidenlast" every year now.

hope there is an explanation.

[o_mom]

Agreeing with PPs - Call the accountant ASAP. Depending on what firm it is, they may cover it the whole thing and I have never heard of one that didn't cover the penalties if it was their mistake. They should also be able to file for some sort of extention for you to get time to come up with the money.

[pinkmomagain]

I'm sorry for your trouble. Hopefully, the accountant can step in and figure this out. If I told you what we owe in taxes this year, I'm sure it would help to make you feel a little better. ;-) It really stinks.

[trales]

Don't panic. We have had this happen before 5 times (don't ask). My guess is that something got entered wrong. If you call the IRS with your case number and let them know you need some time to work with your accountant they will give you a 3 month extension with no questions. They are surprisingly accommodating and yes they will set up a payment plan that is reasonable.

They told us we owed an extra $8,000 based on data entered, once we went through the docs with an accountant, we found the base price of a stock was entered wrong and ended up owing $600.

Take a deep breath and don't panic, it will be okay.

[vludmilla]

We received an IRS letter in October stating that we owed $2800. We double-checked everything and decided we only owed them $900. We wrote a letter detailing our reasoning and calculations and just got a letter from them stating that they agreed! So, it may get worked out. I wouldn't assume that they are correct.

[lovin2shop]

I agree, don't panic. Many of these notices from the IRS are computer generated and use basic assumptions that are in the favor of the IRS. Never pay based on an amount due in a notice without fully understanding what it is for and how it was calculated. Sometimes they are correct, but many times they are not. Good luck, I hope that it is an easily corrected error!

[Emmas Mom]

Man, sue your accountant for the $6K! (only sort of kidding) How in the world did he mess up like that?! Big hugs to you....hope you figure it out in your favor.

[MamaKath]

I'd be steaming! And scared. You are in my thoughts. I hope your accountant straightens it out quickly!

[ThreeofUs]

Gosh! I'd be sick, too! But, like pps have said, work it through and it will probably be ok.

Have your accountant send them a letter - you need an extension to figure out what went wrong and should owe no fees.

Then go over all the #s w/ your acc't. Something was probably just entered wrong.

[inmypjs]

ITA with the others - call your accountant asap. Hopefully he can get it sorted out before the deadline and it will turn out to be their error!

If you are unable to get to the bottom of it before the deadline, be sure you contact the IRS and explain that you are working on the situation. I would call and then send something in writing too, and document it all for your records. I have tax-preparers in my family, and they always say that in this type of situation it is very important to contact the IRS before the money is due. If you do that, they should be willing to work with you.

Good luck!