Each year, the IRS processes more than 150 million tax returns. With so many documents to go over, they’re bound to make a few mathematical errors.
TikToker Maxx Fenning (@maxxfenning) was left in utter shock after he received a letter from the IRS telling him that he owed over $20,000 in taxes.
On top of that, he was slapped with a $4,000 fine for supposedly underreporting his income during the year 2021.
“First of all, I’m a completely different person from the man I was in 2021, and last I checked, you can’t collect taxes from the deceased,” said Maxx. “But secondly, I didn’t even make that much money in 2021.”
He went on to explain that after reading the letter, which he described as a “deranged eight-page manifesto of lies,” he discovered that the IRS had made a massive error.
He had reported an income of $800.00. However, the number had been misinterpreted as $80,000.
So, he made a phone call to notify the IRS of the mistake and was informed he could submit a petition to dispute the charges, alongside a filing fee of $60.
After he asserted there was no way he would be paying a fee, the IRS representative told him to fax over the form instead.
He then drove to his local FedEx and asked the person behind the counter to show him how to operate the fax machine.
As he inserted the form into the machine, he came across another issue. Apparently, the IRS’s fax line was busy, so he could not send in his documents.
“You mean to tell me that the single number provided to all 300 million Americans cannot accept more than one document at a time?” asked Maxx in disbelief.
Ten minutes later, he was finally able to send his tax form to the IRS. Many commenters shared their own stories of the difficulties of dealing with the IRS’s mistakes.
“I’m a bookkeeper; my nonprofit client got fined $600 for being late filing a 990EZ when it was the IRS fault…” stated one commenter.
“The IRS cashed my check for 10 cents instead of 100 dollars, luckily, my bank has a scan of the check where it CLEARLY says $100,” another wrote.
“This happened to me when I was 18/19. They made an error and said I earned 49K instead of 490.00. I ignored until they started garnishing checks,” said a third.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
