Store Clerk Receives $382,810 Tax Bill
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BEAUMONT, Tex. — Joyce Ratley was expecting a $100 income tax refund. What she got was a letter from the IRS telling her she owed $382,810.69.
“I was shocked,” said the department store clerk, who earned $7,922.70 last year.
Ratley’s mistake was to enter the amount withheld for Social Security in the place where she should have written the amount withheld for income taxes.
An IRS computer’s mistake was to slip a decimal point over a couple of places, pushing Ratley’s income to $792,270.
The IRS told Ratley to send the form back for reprocessing.
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