They typically get levy source information from 1099's or
W-2's. They could have also gotten it from a Form 433-B he
may have completed for them.

Dick

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Dennis Ritchie" <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote in

- quote -

Question 1:
Was the letter addressed to you personally (or your company)
or to the landscaper's company? If not addressed to you,
why did you open the letter?

Question 2:
I would guess you somewhere have the phone number of your
landscraper, so why didn't you inform the IRS lady of that
tidbit?

Suggestion of a biochemist <chuckle> :
1. Send a certified letter to "the woman there" (you must
have her name, right?), disclaiming any knowledge of the
company she wants money from, and include both the address
and the phone number of your landscraper.
2. Find another landscaper <grin> .

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

Dennis Ritchie <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote:

- quote -

Well, it seems like they are levying anything of his they
can get their hands on. He owes them taxes and interest
and penalties, which by the time it gets to this point, far
exceeds the actual tax he originally owed.

And he has not come to an agreement with the IRS on a
payment plan. He could have come up with a plan to pay his
bill monthly for up to 5 years, but he didn't. By the time
it gets to taking any money he has or will have, the amount
due has grown quite large.

If he were your employee, you would have been approached as
an employer, and asked to send a percentage of his pay
similar to a garnishment. But apparently he is an
independent contractor, which helps explain why he is in tax
trouble, and the IRS somehow found a list of his customers,
so you received the equivalent of a garnishment notice.

If you owe him money you have to pay it, though if you have
any legal questions about your obligations here, check with
an attorney in NJ, preferrably a tax attorney, but the IRS
most likely has followed the law and is telling you to send
your payment to them, not to him.

You might ask how much longer he will continue to cut your
grass if he isn't getting paid. Or maybe he is glad to be
able to have his tax bill lowered via your payment. Or
maybe not.

As for how they found you, perhaps they asked him. Perhaps
they asked his bank for copies of checks deposited to his
account.

At least it is the IRS asking for payment. The IRS
recently authorized some accounts to be turned over to
professional bill collection services.

__
Art Kamlet ArtKamlet [at] AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Dennis Ritchie" <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote:

- quote -

What you received is not unusual. IRS can and does levy
against the customers of businesses that owe back taxes.
When a business is in this position, IRS will require them
to list all of their customers, with addresses, etc., and,
after applying the required procedures, send levies to those
customers.

You should look closely at what they sent you. Did they
issue a levy against any assets you hold? Or are they
levying against income? There is an important difference.

If the levy is against any assets in your possession, you
may not have to pay anything to IRS. Asset levies are
effective only against assets in your possession at the time
the levy is served on you. If the taxpayer's invoice had
arrived by a subsequent mail delivery, the levy probably
would no apply. Most likely, this is what the levy is.

On the other hand, if the levy is against income, you have
to pay IRS for any bills you receive from this taxpayer
until IRS notifies you that their claim is satisfied.

In short, levies against assets do not endure; levies
against income do.

Lanny K. Williams, CPA
Nawarat, Williams & Co., Ltd.
Income Tax Services for Expatriate Americans

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Dennis Ritchie" <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote:

- quote -

Had I been the one issuing the levies, every customer would
have gotten one, timed to coincide with Mike's billing
cycle.

- quote -

Your account payable to him is one of his assets, and it's
subject to levy.

This type of levy action is a lot more work than just
cleaning out the bank account, so I guess that Mike changed
banks (or decided to go to cash) after they cleaned him out
the last time. I also guess that Mike is being less than
forthcoming in his efforts to reach a mutually satisfactory
resolution to the delinquency.

--
Phil Marti
Clarksburg, MD

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

Dennis Ritchie <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote:

- quote -

Well, it seems like they are levying anything of his they
can get their hands on. He owes them taxes and interest
and penalties, which by the time it gets to this point, far
exceeds the actual tax he originally owed.

And he has not come to an agreement with the IRS on a
payment plan. He could have come up with a plan to pay his
bill monthly for up to 5 years, but he didn't. By the time
it gets to taking any money he has or will have, the amount
due has grown quite large.

If he were your employee, you would have been approached as
an employer, and asked to send a percentage of his pay
similar to a garnishment. But apparently he is an
independent contractor, which helps explain why he is in tax
trouble, and the IRS somehow found a list of his customers,
so you received the equivalent of a garnishment notice.

If you owe him money you have to pay it, though if you have
any legal questions about your obligations here, check with
an attorney in NJ, preferrably a tax attorney, but the IRS
most likely has followed the law and is telling you to send
your payment to them, not to him.

You might ask how much longer he will continue to cut your
grass if he isn't getting paid. Or maybe he is glad to be
able to have his tax bill lowered via your payment. Or
maybe not.

As for how they found you, perhaps they asked him. Perhaps
they asked his bank for copies of checks deposited to his
account.

At least it is the IRS asking for payment. The IRS
recently authorized some accounts to be turned over to
professional bill collection services.

__
Art Kamlet ArtKamlet [at] AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Dennis Ritchie" <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote in

- quote -

Question 1:
Was the letter addressed to you personally (or your company)
or to the landscaper's company? If not addressed to you,
why did you open the letter?

Question 2:
I would guess you somewhere have the phone number of your
landscraper, so why didn't you inform the IRS lady of that
tidbit?

Suggestion of a biochemist <chuckle> :
1. Send a certified letter to "the woman there" (you must
have her name, right?), disclaiming any knowledge of the
company she wants money from, and include both the address
and the phone number of your landscraper.
2. Find another landscaper <grin> .

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Dennis Ritchie" <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote:

- quote -

What you received is not unusual. IRS can and does levy
against the customers of businesses that owe back taxes.
When a business is in this position, IRS will require them
to list all of their customers, with addresses, etc., and,
after applying the required procedures, send levies to those
customers.

You should look closely at what they sent you. Did they
issue a levy against any assets you hold? Or are they
levying against income? There is an important difference.

If the levy is against any assets in your possession, you
may not have to pay anything to IRS. Asset levies are
effective only against assets in your possession at the time
the levy is served on you. If the taxpayer's invoice had
arrived by a subsequent mail delivery, the levy probably
would no apply. Most likely, this is what the levy is.

On the other hand, if the levy is against income, you have
to pay IRS for any bills you receive from this taxpayer
until IRS notifies you that their claim is satisfied.

In short, levies against assets do not endure; levies
against income do.

Lanny K. Williams, CPA
Nawarat, Williams & Co., Ltd.
Income Tax Services for Expatriate Americans

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

"Dennis Ritchie" <dmr[at]bell-labs.com> wrote:

- quote -

Had I been the one issuing the levies, every customer would
have gotten one, timed to coincide with Mike's billing
cycle.

- quote -

Your account payable to him is one of his assets, and it's
subject to levy.

This type of levy action is a lot more work than just
cleaning out the bank account, so I guess that Mike changed
banks (or decided to go to cash) after they cleaned him out
the last time. I also guess that Mike is being less than
forthcoming in his efforts to reach a mutually satisfactory
resolution to the delinquency.

--
Phil Marti
Clarksburg, MD

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >

On Thursday, I got a fat, hand-addressed letter from the
local IRS SBSE Compliance office, and opened it with some
trepidation, which only increased when I saw the title: Notice
of Levy, and a bunch of rows for various years with a fat
total at the bottom.

Looking more closely, though, the Taxpayer involved is the
company owned by the guy who cuts my grass, so it appeared
that I was just being told, not levied myself.

So I called the IRS number listed, and immediately got the
woman there, who didn't seem surprised to hear from me.
Basically she said that I should send any payments direct to
IRS (actually USTreas). She sort of chuckled when I mentioned
that the last bill from Mike's Landscaping arrived in the same
mail.

Two things I should have asked and didn't: how did I get
involved (one guesses that they looked over Mike's deposited
checks), and whether all his customers got the same thing, or
whether they just picked me at random.

The bigger question is, is this a usual sort of thing? If I
were a bank I wouldn't be surprised, but my transactions with
him involved only a monthly bill, and no, I'm not in control
of any of his assets.

Dennis

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only > << and does NOT constitute legal OR professional advice. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >