Anyone know tax law that can give some advice?

[kinglewy]

I am tile guy by trade and a sub-contractor. General contractors sub-contract me work and taxes never come out. I have never filed taxes in my life and I am 36. When tax time came around there was never much money to give them anyway, the busy and slow times of a tradesman are rough, when your slow you want to hold onto your money to sustain you until things pick up and when your busy you want to stash it for the next time you get slow. You never seem to get ahead.

Well long story short I stop at home depot to get material for the current job and my card gets denied. I thought for sure there must be some type of computer error or something. so I go to the bank to find out that the irs has levied both my business and personal accounts, they literally took every last dime and basically as a business have wiped me out. even if I was to get a call tomorrow for a big job I wouldn't be able to front the material costs and pay guys wages to help.

And to top it off a couple of the contractors called me and said they have received notice of levy against any 1099 earnings I may earn, which means anything they owe me they have to forward to the irs. The first blow was rough but the second was disastrous, a lot of these contractors aren't necessarily on the up and up tax wise so all the notices did was scare them away from giving me any work.

Called a tax attorney and they want $5000 retainer lol. He obviously didn't hear me when I told him they wiped me out.

Sorry for such a long rant but if anyone has any advice or has gone through this themselves I would appreciate any info. Thanks in advance.

 

[pesty4077]

I am tile guy by trade and a sub-contractor. General contractors sub-contract me work and taxes never come out. I have never filed taxes in my life and I am 36. When tax time came around there was never much money to give them anyway, the busy and slow times of a tradesman are rough, when your slow you want to hold onto your money to sustain you until things pick up and when your busy you want to stash it for the next time you get slow. You never seem to get ahead.

Well long story short I stop at home depot to get material for the current job and my card gets denied. I thought for sure there must be some type of computer error or something. so I go to the bank to find out that the irs has levied both my business and personal accounts, they literally took every last dime and basically as a business have wiped me out. even if I was to get a call tomorrow for a big job I wouldn't be able to front the material costs and pay guys wages to help.

And to top it off a couple of the contractors called me and said they have received notice of levy against any 1099 earnings I may earn, which means anything they owe me they have to forward to the irs. The first blow was rough but the second was disastrous, a lot of these contractors aren't necessarily on the up and up tax wise so all the notices did was scare them away from giving me any work.

Called a tax attorney and they want $5000 retainer lol. He obviously didn't hear me when I told him they wiped me out.

Sorry for such a long rant but if anyone has any advice or has gone through this themselves I would appreciate any info. Thanks in advance.

Curious, What makes you think you are above the law and don't have to pay taxes? I am a General Contractor too. I 1099 sub contractors too. All contractors do this or they would have to pay additional taxes on money you earned. You think at 36 that the IRS was not going to catch up to you sooner or later? You are screwed now, you are in their system and they know who you are well.

The Contractors have to give your money to the IRS or they can face penalties or fines. This means they probably won't be using you again, I wouldn't. The least of you worries is paying all the back taxes you owe, probably more then you can afford too. The thing you need to worry about is going to jail for tax evasion. Ask Wesley Snipes, he thought he was above the law too. You better get legal representation just to stay out of jail and arrange with the IRS all the money you owe.

 

[kinglewy]

Curious, What makes you think you are above the law and don't have to pay taxes? I am a General Contractor too. I 1099 sub contractors too. All contractors do this or they would have to pay additional taxes on money you earned. You think at 36 that the IRS was not going to catch up to you sooner or later? You are screwed now, you are in their system and they know who you are well.

The Contractors have to give your money to the IRS or they can face penalties or fines. This means they probably won't be using you again, I wouldn't. The least of you worries is paying all the back taxes you owe, probably more then you can afford too. The thing you need to worry about is going to jail for tax evasion. Ask Wesley Snipes, he thought he was above the law too. You better get legal representation just to stay out of jail and arrange with the IRS all the money you owe.

I don't know where you see that I said I was above the law, I was just stating the situation as it is.

Do I feel that I have done something morally wrong for not paying taxes? Ofcourse not, you seem to have some sort of moral outrage that I didn't pay my taxes lol. This is done in the trades all the time, some get caught some don't. In my case my business started to take off and the checks started getting bigger, this is how it usually happens. Some guys fly under the radar forever.

I find it funny that you as an illegal drug abuser who purchases illegal drugs like the rest of us is somehow outraged that I didn't pay taxes. Your a silly man.

 

[pesty4077]

I don't know where you see that I said I was above the law, I was just stating the situation as it is.

Do I feel that I have done something morally wrong for not paying taxes? Ofcourse not, you seem to have some sort of moral outrage that I didn't pay my taxes lol. This is done in the trades all the time, some get caught some don't. In my case my business started to take off and the checks started getting bigger, this is how it usually happens. Some guys fly under the radar forever.

I find it funny that you as an illegal drug abuser who purchases illegal drugs like the rest of us is somehow outraged that I didn't pay taxes. Your a silly man.

Well, I am not the one being silly here. The IRS could care less about you taking some small amount of AAS. No, they want all that money you refuse to pay. This is a federal crime too, think about that. As far as a moral issue? Do I want to pay taxes? No, but I do not to have problems just like you are having now. All my sub contractors pay taxes, so I don't know how you think everyone isn't because you are not. If you were smart, you would know there are many tax breaks for small businesses and you can even open a corp to pay less taxes. But you do have to pay taxes, we all do and it has nothing to do with a moral issue.

The IRS can and will do what they want. You are finding that out the hard way. The reason I tell you that you need an attorney is they will not stop unless you make a deal with them to pay outstanding taxes. The other thing you can do is call them up directly and see what you owe. They do allow you to make payments . Another option is after you find out how much you owe is getting in contact with someone who will negotiate your debt if over 10K. They will also get those levies removed and you can just make a certain payment per month. If you ignore this, it will get worse. I suggest you find out how much you owe with the IRS first and see if you can work out a deal.

Do all this first and then come back here to see how you should set up your business legit. There is a few guys here who understand tax write offs. I own 2 businesses. Taxes suck, but nothing we can do about it.

 

[MaineGuy]

Kinglewy,
I feel for you man. I would rather mess with the Feds than mess with the IRS. I got into a little trouble with them and it was not my fault. I was working overseas and my company was doing my taxes (part of the deal), Well, they screwed up and it came back on me. Anyway, I got it all taken care of, but what a damn nightmare.

The IRS views people in different ways, ones that avoid taxes, and those that evade. You follow into the "evade" category, which is the worse. They really go after evaders for Jail time. Wesley Snipes evaded for 6 years, and went to prison for knowingly evading taxes.

You need a good lawyer to help you wade through this process cautiously. I am afraid you have not seen the worst of it yet, I hope that I am wrong. You need to show some serious willing to work with them in paying your debt and maybe they will leave it at that. If you truly did not make a fortune, they may look at you as a little guy and just take the payments. It also will depend on the person that is handling your case.

Good luck and I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Honestly though, hire a lawyer and let him deal with it, it will take so much stress off of your shoulders. Life goes on