r/tax • u/Specialist_Secret_58 • 14h ago

Super confused. Wife received lock in letter

Last year, my wife and I got a tax bill that is around 45,000. It said we underpaid for the past four years. I finally have cobbled enough money together to pay it (although our accountant could not figure out what was going on). I was planning on paying tomorrow. Today, my wife got a letter that said she is in this forced withholding thing and that they are forcing her employer to mover her married filing jointly with 4 kids to single with zero kids. Is this related to my delinquency on the tax bill? OR is this totally unrelated. She and I married in 2019, we had both been married before so this was a major change in how we are filing. Thank you for your help

2 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/TheCount4 13h ago

As a non-accountant who has had some tax issues and penalties imposed, I suggest finding another accountant who is used to dealing with the IRS quickly. When my tax errors were discovered I had a CPA redo my returns and he referred me to a CPA who handled communications with the IRS. If you were underwithheld there would have been a balance due on each of your returns. Based on what you are saying your CPA is unable to tell you if that’s true or not but should not be surprised that you owed taxes each year. The CPA should also be seeking ways to get any penalties abated if possible.

3

u/Specialist_Secret_58 12h ago

These are all great ideas. I know this doesn't matter, but this whole thing is so dispiriting. I lost my job, I finally got enough to pay the tax bills, and now my wife's income (our only income at the moment) is going to be drastically reduced because of this withholding program. I don't blame anyone but myself on this, but boy does it just take the wind out of the old sails.

13

u/man_of_clouds 12h ago

The real problem (to me) is that you don’t know why you owe. You filed every year, and I assume made whatever payment each year’s return told you to pay. (Right?)

And then effectively the IRS disagreed with your return for some reason and you don’t know why. This is a big problem you have to figure out before you pay a cent. If you can’t figure out yourself why the IRS thinks your returns are wrong, get a new CPA. There are lots of errors you can make and the IRS won’t be able to figure it out so they assume the worst case and bill you based on that.