Everyone making it through tax season OK?

[JThiessen]

Originally Posted by simplechamp

I always wonder when I see those ads on TV for tax debt relief lawyers. The people on there say, "I owed the IRS $150,000 and the tax debt lawyer got it down to a fraction of that!" And I think, how the heck can you owe that much to the IRS unless you are doing something extremely stupid, irresponsible, or downright criminal? It's not like the IRS just decides out of nowhere that you owe them all this money. Yes, there are circumstances where you might make an accounting error and they tell you you owe an extra few hundred or even a few thousand, but to owe tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't a simple accounting mistake. Hope I don't offend anyone with that statement, but I just don't get it.

I have a hard time feeling sorry for those people. They either got caught cheating the system, or they were dummies for not doing their homework. Think about how much money you'd have to make to owe the gov't 150K....I made over 130K last year, and my total taxes owed (prior to deductions)was somewhere around 14K (cant remember for certain). Those people made huge money somewhere, and tried to get away without paying their fair share.