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The IRS really wants its 4 cents’ worth

March 16th, 2010 | Agencies IRS | Posted by Rebecca Neal

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The IRS wants Harv's Metro Car Wash in California to pay these. Oh, and $202.31 in penalties and interest.

The IRS wants Harv's Metro Car Wash in California to pay these. Oh, and $202.31 in penalties and interest.

If two IRS agents personally delivered a tax-due notice to your business, you’d assume you’d made a serious clerical error and owed thousands of dollars, right?

Try 4 cents.

That’s how much IRS agents told a manager last week at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in Sacramento, Calif., that the company owned in back taxes. Since the 4 cents dated back to 2006, interest and penalties owed totaled $202.31.

All for 4 cents.

The car wash’s owner, Aaron Zeff, told The Sacramento Bee that the IRS sent him a letter on Oct. 22, 2009, stating that his company “has filed all required returns and addressed any balances due.”

Reading that, one would gather that he or she owned no taxes. But apparently that’s not the case, and that has Zeff both confused and annoyed.

It’s hilarious that two people hopped in a car and came down here for just 4 cents. I think [the IRS] may have a problem with priorities.”

UPDATE: The Sacramento Bee just posted another story saying Zeff has cut the IRS a check for $202.35. Zeff said the car wash was late several years ago on a quarterly payroll tax filing, and penalties and interest were assessed on the late filing.

The car wash made the late payment, which covered all but 4 cents of the payroll obligation, leaving the penalties and interest in place, Zeff told the Bee.

Zeff said he wonders why he was never told about the balance before last week’s surprising IRS drop in.

What’s still a mystery is why Zeff was never informed about the tardy payment (and resulting fees) before last week’s visit by agents.

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Comments

  1. IRS gets four cent bill from Sacramento car wash | Public Relations Firm PR Blog Says:
    March 18th, 2010 at 5:59 pm

    [...] background: The IRS sent two representatives to Harv’s Metro Car Wash in Sacramento to collect an overdue tax bill for $202.31 from the business.  The only thing is, the initial amount owed was $.04, which eventually [...]