She had a bag. I had a bad feeling.

I was standing in line at Staples the other day, returning something to Amazon.

The woman in front of me had a bag full of clothes.

Not two or three things. Thirteen pieces.

One by one, the Staples employee scanned them. Shirt. Pants. Another shirt. Another package. Even the guy behind the counter started rolling his eyes.

So was the woman standing in front of me. I thought: there really are people who buy stuff just to return it. Serial returners.

Finally, she finished. I figured we were moving now.

Nope.

The woman who'd been rolling her eyes stepped up to the counter, opened her own bag, and pulled out what looked like another fifteen pieces of clothing.

I almost laughed out loud. The serial returner was judging another serial returner.

Felt like a Seinfeld episode. 

But standing there, I realized something. I see a version of this all the time with tax problems.

People keep returning the solution.

Hire someone. Stop. Try something else. Stop. Call one of those Offer in Compromise companies they heard on the radio.

Stop. Ignore the IRS for another six months. Start all over again. 

Here's the problem.

The IRS isn't Amazon. There's no free return label. 

Interest keeps running. Penalties keep piling up. Collection notices don't disappear because you changed your mind about dealing with them.

At some point you have to stop shopping for another answer and actually finish the job.

That doesn't mean an Offer in Compromise. It doesn't mean doing whatever the IRS tells you to do either.

It means figuring out the right resolution for your situation, then seeing it through.

So enjoy your Friday.

If you've got twenty-seven shirts sitting in the trunk waiting to go back to Amazon, I'm not judging you.

Well. Maybe a little.

But if you've been doing the same thing with your IRS problem, that's different. 

Stop returning the solution. Go to TaxDebtTriage.com and tell me where you're at, or call 909-570-1103 or just book your own appointment at CallTAX.com 

I'll take it from there.

Carlos Samaniego, EA,
The Tax Debt Detective
TaxDebtConsultant.com
909-570-1103

P.S. If you've started dealing with your tax problem three different times and somehow keep ending up back at the beginning, maybe the problem isn't finding another solution. Maybe it's finally finishing the right one.

The tax lesson

People treat their tax problem like a return they can undo any time, but the IRS doesn't take returns, and every restart just adds more interest and penalties to the pile.