State Income Tax Collection

[FLRussianHubby]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

For the past several months, I have been TRYING to arrange a payment plan for some back Florida State Income Taxes for my business. It's not a large amount of money ($1500) but for me, right now, it might as well be a million $.

During the process, I have warned the state several times that I have MAJOR surgery scheduled and whatever payment plans would need to either be finalized before the surgery or it would have to wait until I'm out of the hospital and semi-functional. Due to their huge red tape (all just to do a payment plan of $100 or so a month), my surgery happened before the plan was set up.

I am currently in a hospital bed as I write this (LITERALLY). There were severe complications to the surgery (an infection and also now deep vein thrombosis, which is life-threatening). I had expected some problems but these are worse than even I expected. I have been in the hospital for over a month.

Tonight I decided to log on to my account to see how things were going, and I found that the State of Florida has seized my bank account. They must meet with me at their office to resolve it. That simply is not possible. I am still in the hospital and it will be several months before I can drive/walk again. JUST AS I HAD WARNED THEM BEFORE THE SURGERY. I cannot even access my own business records as they are on the third floor and it's impossible for me to climb stairs.

What rights do I have? By them seizing my account, I have $0 available to me (in fact, it's negative). Savings is all gone. $0 in my personal accounts. I have no possibility of income until I heal up. I have no assets I can even consider selling. I have no chance of a loan. Nobody who can afford to help me. And, my business is just me--I have no other employees or partners or anything else that can help. At this point, by the end of the month, I will lose my apartment and everything else that I have left as they seized the money I needed for the rent. All of this was a very delicate balancing act that was necessary to keep me surviving until the surgery was over. And, on May 15, I will have $10k + due to the IRS as the money I needed to start payments to them will also not be available causing me to default!!!!

The crappy part is that all of these taxes are on uncollectible accounts (went uncollectible in the next tax year). Clients walked away without paying.

All of this because I was TRYING to work with Florida and they decided to completely ignore what I was telling them. Instead, I risk being discharged from the hospital into a homeless shelter....

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.
Robert

 

[justalayman]

warning the state is never a productive act. You are the one in the wrong so warning them really isn't going to mean anything to them.

If you are that immobilized, I suggest calling them on the phone and speaking with them about your situation. I wouldn't expect a lot of success though. Generally seizing accounts means they have tried to work with the taxpayer for quite awhile and got no results.

 

[FLRussianHubby]

Even the bank tried calling them on my behalf and got nowhere. I finally got someone on the phone who said I was missing some information. I informed them that not only was the info sent in but I verified with their agent that it was received a month ago. They said they would research it and call me back. Haver not heard from them since. Still no access to my money. There has to be a way of fighting them. if we have given them this much uncheckedpower then this country is doomed.

 

[tranquility]

The state gets it's taxes. They don't much care if you need the money for something else, unless it's an amount within the statutes allowing you to keep some. They don't really care if your timeline matches with theirs. It is a bureaucracy made up of many people following rules promulgated the the legislature, courts and executive.

It's taxes.

Unchecked power? Um...kinda. Unless you think they violated one of their myriad rules or the law and can take them to court, yes, they can take your money.

I don't see any way out of the situation other than getting a tax professional and give him a power of attorney to deal with the situation.

I do note, a side benefit would be a review of your tax situation. While it can certainly be the case that you are on an accrual basis of accounting, unless you are:

The crappy part is that all of these taxes are on uncollectible accounts (went uncollectible in the next tax year). Clients walked away without paying.

may point to a potential problem in your tax prep.