Tax 'scofflaws' get off too easy

I get real tired of seeing the ads on TV that have phone numbers to call if you are "more than $10,000 in debt to the IRS."

One person owed the IRS $50,000 - paid $8,000; another owed $28,000 - paid $5,772, ad infinitum. That is a joke.

These people do not pay their "fair amount," accrue much in tax debt, then call these "places" to get their taxes reduced dramatically.

These people are evidently making much money in the first place, yet do not pay their fair share. In other words, it behooves one to amass a tax debt of more than $10,000 and then pay at a greatly reduced fee.

In 2006, I was audited for my taxes. I made all of about $16,000 that year at a business that I co-owned. My first and only audit. I was petrified. I did inadvertently forget to include a small dividend, hence the audit, evidently. I did go to the audit.

The IRS agent went over it with me. I ended up owing the IRS, with penalty, $19.74. I was relieved. I went home, wrote a check to the IRS for $20 and sent it in. A few weeks later, I got a letter in the mail from the IRS; it was a check for 26 cents. I had overpaid them.

Yet, these people in the commercials are getting off for pennies on the dollar. That can't be legal.

In the first place, owing that much in past taxes, they had to be making a lot in the first place. They nail me for pennies, yet let these "scofflaws" get away with thousands? That is inconceivable.

David E. Ronske

Elmhurst