Why I told Ray not to scan the barcode

There is a new kind of IRS letter going out right now.

It is friendly. Almost helpful.

"Call us to set up your payment arrangement. Or scan this barcode." 

Some go further. They name a number. "We can approve an installment agreement of $1,041 a month."

The IRS built AI voice bots to answer those calls. Millions handled so far. No hold music. No waiting.

Scan, call, agree, done.

For one kind of person, that is genuinely fine. All your returns are filed. You owe one year. The number is right.

Take the deal and move on with your life.

But before you scan that barcode, you should know:

• If you have not filed in years, the bill on that letter is not your bill. The IRS created it for you. It is called a Substitute for Return. No deductions. No write-offs. No business expenses. The most expensive legal version of your tax debt, invented by a computer. The barcode is asking you to agree to it.

• If you have multiple unfiled tax years, the IRS can't put you in an installment agreement, and they're gonna tell you you have a 30-day deadline to file all your returns.

• If your identity was stolen, that debt may belong to someone else entirely. The barcode does not know that. The voice bot does not care.

• That "quick call" is also an interview. Where do you bank? Where do you work? What is your cell number? You think you are setting up a payment plan. They are building a collection file. Miss one payment later and they already know exactly where the money lives.

We just handled this exact case. Call him Ray. 

His letter offered an installment agreement at just over $1,000 a month.

Ray could not afford $1,000 a month. Nobody at the IRS looked at his actual finances. No one there is paid to do that for you.

We looked. Here is what came out of it:

• The real number, based on his actual financials: just under $400 a month

• We took that number to the IRS and got it approved

• The difference: $600 a month. $7,200 a year.

That is what the barcode almost cost him. One scan. One agreeable phone call. $7,200 a year, every year, for the life of the agreement.

And here is the part nobody puts on the letter. Once you agree to their number, you are locked into their number.

Getting it changed later means starting over from the bottom of the pile while the payments keep drafting.

Before you scan anything, go to TaxDebtTriage.com and tell me what you got in the mail. Or call me at 909-570-1103 or book your own appointment at CallTaxEa.com 

The IRS made it easy to call them. That does not make it smart.

To your survival,

Carlos Samaniego, EA,
TaxDebtConsultant.com
909-570-1103

P.S. The largest collection agency on the planet did not add a barcode to your letter to help you. They added it to shorten the distance between your bank account and theirs.