Opinion articles provide independent perspectives on key community issues, separate from our newsroom reporting.

Letters to the Editor

IRS a heartless bureaucracy bent only on punishment

Got a question for the IRS? Online may end up being the only way to get an answer. The IRS may soon dramatically scale back telephone and face-to-face service as part of a future plan that would focus more on online accounts for the 150 million individual taxpayers and 11 million businesses seeking help and information, the agency’s official watchdog office warned.
Got a question for the IRS? Online may end up being the only way to get an answer. The IRS may soon dramatically scale back telephone and face-to-face service as part of a future plan that would focus more on online accounts for the 150 million individual taxpayers and 11 million businesses seeking help and information, the agency’s official watchdog office warned. Susan Walsh AP

The IRS is a heartless bureaucracy with unprecedented power over us with a patent disregard for due process. My wife and I withdrew money from an IRA in 2012 to buy a home in Bradenton.

We were in contract to see our home in New York and planned to use the sale proceeds to put the money back in an IRA. Unfortunately our buyers' bank delayed approval to the point where we apparently missed a rollover deadline.

The IRS has decided this IRA was income and now wants taxes, interest and penalties. The IRS lays out an appeal process which is at best one side, time consuming and sometimes costly. Used to no avail.

The IRS is now threatening property seizure. The "taxpayer advocate" has little power, and at times given incorrect information. My wife and I are retired and living on a fixed income. What all the big loopholes for corporations and millionaires, where is the help for those who have paid their taxes since they first went to work over 40 years ago.

Philip Sterdt

Bradenton

This story was originally published January 26, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "IRS a heartless bureaucracy bent only on punishment ."

Get unlimited digital access
#ReadLocal

Try 1 month for $1

CLAIM OFFER