AT,.. Contact the media about this and say "Have I got a story for you".. After the IRS stops blushing at the inapropriate persuit and fine of an honest citizen,.. who knows they may just accept the B&D as payment afterall.
or, sue them for charging you for their slow processing of your 1989 tax return.. After all you handed it in on time. Taking/waiting 17 years to process the return is just so wrong on many levels. If you have the 'return' for back then where you paid or recieved a tax due/refund. then the error is theirs not yours. If the IRS has no deadline on cold cases and can retro fine someone they are robbing the public.
A Similar story happened with an overdue book in a library.. when someone died their child brought the book back to the library. They Had no idea the book was lent out,.. they had to search through their records to find that it had indeed been lent out and said $300 in late fees were due. He went to the media,.. the library accepeted the book back and did not charge anything.
With the IRS Logic,.. when they see a person has tax due $14 or $14,000 all they have to do is ignore it and wait 16 years then say they owe $450/$450,000 due to an error. (even if the error was theirs)
Sick, it's just plain sick. Come to Canada, we are not as bad here.
Nuf said, Cheers!
