Radio Interview (May 22, 2025)

Listen to this interview – MP3

Host 00:00
Good morning to Steven Klitzner law office of Steve Klitzner Florida tax solvers.com. Hello Steve. How are you this morning?

Steven 00:06
Well, great. Good morning, Michael.

Host 00:08
Yeah, thanks so much for being here. So happy Memorial Day to you. Hope you have some plans to celebrate and also commemorate those who served.

Steven 00:18
Yes, yes, you know, and this one, it was yesterday when it first occurred to me that it is indeed Monday and that was just a great feeling of knowing we’ve got a nice three-day week to kick off the summer.

Host 00:31
Exactly. That is very true.

Well, you get involved with a lot of different aspects of the law when it pertains to tax issues. And we’ve talked about a lot of different issues here on the show, we appreciate all the knowledge you’ve been parted upon us. Tax deadline has passed, some people might get a little complacent. But let’s talk about other ways that people can have tax implications. And unfortunately, one of those you were starting to relate to can be off the air involves scams. So talk about that.

Steven 01:04
Yeah, you know, people think that they when when they hear that I take care of IRS problems for people and I solve them, some people judge that, oh, all your clients are guilty, et cetera, et cetera. Well, yes, most of my clients haven’t paid their taxes.

They didn’t want to get into that problem, but they did. But I do represent some people that just had made some bad mistakes and as a result, oh, tax money. I had a call last week from a lady and this one really broke my heart. I actually don’t know the whole story because I couldn’t ask her questions. It was upsetting me so much. But the bottom line is she became convinced through a scam and making a phone call to who she thought was Apple, that she had been scammed. And somebody had taken thirty two thousand dollars when indeed they had not. Well, then she was told in order to protect all of her money and she and her husband are in their 70s, they needed to give their life savings. Send it over and we’ll give you back. It was something in relation to some gold or something like that. And your money will be protected. Well, all their money went seven figures, life savings and it’s gone. Oh, my gosh. Now, they have that they took it out of their investment account. They’re going to have tax consequences. We estimate it could be six hundred thousand dollars that I’m going to try to go to the IRS and see if I can significantly reduce that based on the circumstances. But I think the lesson is this. When someone wants you to give them money, no matter how convinced you might be, you need to take a step back and just call somebody. Call your kids, call your parents, your friends, your lawyer, your accountant, your banker. Call somebody and just run it by them. If you do that, maybe you won’t take that step because something happens with people and I got it from her completely. It’s just short circuited in her brain. She just she couldn’t she couldn’t process that this could be a scam. And as a result, I mean, it’s just heartbreaking.

Host 03:27
It is. Well, and again, we’ve talked with Sheriff about this numerous times. Those types of scams do prey on people’s emotions rather than their logic. And he has said exactly what you just did, take a step back, look at things logically, call someone you know, or call the authorities and talk about what you’re experiencing before acting. And that is good advice.

But no one would not consider the tax implications that after the damage that has been done, further insult to injury being the tax implications. And you’re certainly going to do what you can. Unfortunately, there’s many cases, though, whereby the IRS does not act on emotion, and is pretty cut and dry in terms of how they treat a taxpayer.

Steven 04:16
Yeah, there’s no question. They don’t, for the most part, care.

We’re going to try to prevail on them based on effective tax administration and even hardship to see what we can do. They do have some property left, but certainly they’re not as comfortable as they would have been. And, you know, the scams come in different forms. I have a lady I represent who had an online romance with someone who wasn’t who she thought she was, and they were going to buy property together and she thought he was in Europe. She actually did some investigation when she lost all of her money and he’s somewhere in Mexico. But what happened was she turned all her money over to him. I think they were going to buy a property together, but he just doesn’t exist, and her money is gone. Oh, my gosh.

Host 05:03
And there’s no way to recoup that, it seems.

Steven 05:06
Oh, yeah. I mean, you could, you know, you call the police and they go, OK, we’ll open up a file. And of course, nothing happens.

And even if they found the people who knows if they’re even in this country, they’ll never get the money back. But I was involved in a scam. I was a potential scammer once. Oh, my. Here’s what happened. OK, I get a call. I get a call from somebody up in Pennsylvania. It was a banker. And he said, my client, my customer just told me he sent you whatever it was, X simmer dollars, 40, 50, 60 thousand dollars. And he wants to know what happened to it. Well, apparently, some scam artists out there wrote to people. It’s usually older people. It was people in the Northeast telling them that they’d want, of course, the lottery that they never played. But in order to take care of their tax implications, they need to send a check for 50, 60 thousand dollars to Steve Klitzner, P.O. Box this, because he’s our tax attorney and he will take care of all the taxes for you. Of course, I knew nothing about it. The P.O. Box was in my area. Several people called me, some of them before they sent the money, thank goodness. Others after they sent the money. The first thing I did was call the police. They checked it out. We never heard from the police again. The second thing I did was call the Florida bar and say to them, listen, if anyone complains that I’m scamming, I just want you to make a note. It’s not me. And fortunately, no one ever complained about the fake me.

But, you know, everybody is is vulnerable. And another example of people just for whatever reason falling for a scam and it becomes like a perfect storm of mistakes. And the next thing you know, you’re out a lot of money.

Host 07:01
Well, and that scammer was impersonating you, it apparently was the case, but that maybe is a compliment because they saw you as being credible. So let’s impersonate somebody that they would believe in.

And that’s Steve Klitzner, the office of Steve Klitzner, FloridaTaxSolvers.com. Steve, give us the local phone number again, by the way.

Steven 07:21
305-682-1118.

Host 07:26
1118 yes indeed for free consultation with Steven Klitzner no matter what your tax implications or problems are he can certainly help them scams have existed to whereby people impersonating the IRS as well reaching out that had been fairly common at one point I assume it still exists and again I will put in a plug again for our police and sheriff’s office personnel in the keys they do take all of these very seriously and follow up on potential scams but they have emphasized that the IRS will not contact you by email or by phone initially.

Steven 08:07
Absolutely. If you get an email from the IRS, it is not from the IRS. It is a scam.

If you get a phone call from the IRS, it is a scam. They will always write you a letter first. If they send it to a private collection agency, you’ll get a letter. If they’ve assigned it to a revenue officer here locally, you will first get an appointment letter. That doesn’t mean you have to go to the appointment, but you’ll get a first contact letter. The problem is some people have an IRS problem and coincidentally get a phone call or an email and they do think it’s real. Then they fall for it. Of course, the IRS doesn’t take iTunes gift cards or Walmart gift cards, and you can always pay by check and you can always go online to pay it, so you never have to mail them anything, and you can always check your IRS account online. The other scam we see is when a federal tax lien is filed. You have these scammers around the country sending out letters that look like official IRS letters. They don’t have a website, they don’t have a name, they just have a phone number. It looks like they’re the IRS and you can resolve your problem with them. Those are scammers who are trying to get you to give them money so that they could theoretically help you with your IRS problem. The only thing they’re helping themselves to is a free check from you because you may never hear from them again.

Host 09:45
Wow. Well, there are a lot of pitfalls that people can fall into. And yes, even if people don’t have an IRS problem, uh, they may be at least convinced into, uh, it’s almost like gaslighting where they’re convinced that they may have a problem. Uh, and then they start to question themselves and react, uh, accordingly in the wrong direction.

Steven Klitzner law office of Steve Klitzner PA, the Florida tax solvers.com, 3 0 5 6 8 2 1 1 1 8. And yes, just about anybody, whether they’re well-intentioned or not, can fall into tax problems, can fall behind, uh, maybe didn’t file their taxes, put it off too long, et cetera. Lots of different pitfalls as we said that people can fall into. And all of a sudden it is truly a real cascade of problems that, uh, they need to address sooner rather than later.

Steven 10:41
Right. Yeah. And you know, and the scammers, once they, once they know you’ll send them money, somebody else will be calling you, figuring out all of a sudden, yeah, we know you paid your IRS taxes. We, you have a now state taxes due. We don’t have state income tax here in Florida, but you have state taxes due, you know, another X number of dollars. They will continue until they bleed you dry. And it’s just very, it’s very concerning for everybody. And you just have to give it some thought. Just ask anyone you know what you should do. And hopefully that person will stop. I had a gentleman come in a few years ago and he got a scam phone call, but he was convinced there was a problem with his tax return. And that’s why they were calling him. His wife was with him. She kept telling me, talk sense into him. And finally I said, all right, just hire me. I don’t want you to hire me, but hire me. I will get the records and I will show you. You do not have any problems. And that’s exactly what happened. He insisted on giving me money just for peace of mind, even though I tell them not to worry.

Host 11:50
Wow. Well, good advice.

Certainly, Steven Klitzner, tax attorney with FloridaTaxSolvers.com at 305-682-1118. You can get a consultation from someone who will definitely not scam you at Steven Klitzner addressing the IRS and IRS problems for many years here in South Florida and in Monroe County as well. And it’s not necessarily a scam, but it’s also not advisable to call one of those 1-800 numbers where you’ll be dealing with someone who is not nearly as knowledgeable about IRS issues but still will claim to solve all your tax issues magically. And they don’t have the relationships either with the IRS that you currently have and have fostered over many years.

Steven 12:39
You know, the relationships really help. It allows me to cut to the chase. You know, that doesn’t mean because I know somebody at the IRS suddenly they’re going to give my client some incredible deal that could get them fired. It doesn’t work that way.

But they will give us some leeway. They will let me suggest some solutions and they will work with me because we have a common goal. And that is resolving the case so that my client can afford to make payments and not be set up for failure. And the IRS will be happy with what they’re getting even if it’s short term and we’re going to revisit it later.

Host 13:17
Well, Steve, also talk about you had mentioned that the IRS will only contact you by mail, and that’s the initial contact if you have an IRS problem. If you’ve moved, if you don’t respond, if you, well, let’s say that mail doesn’t catch up to you because the Postal Service is having some issues as of late with, you know, some of their staffing, etc.

So suppose that you don’t ever actually receive that. Does that alleviate you from further complications?

Steven 13:49
Well, they’re generally only required to send it to your last known address. OK. So if you do move, of course, when you file a tax return, the IRS will have a new address for you. And that’s the address they have to send it to. You could also send a change of address to the IRS. Most people won’t think of that when they’re moving. That’s the last people they’re going to let know. But if they send it to the address on file, no matter what it says, it counts against you.

And you could be losing valuable rights. We have that with a lot of folks that haven’t filed in many years. And the IRS is sending them very threatening letters. They’re threatening to file returns for them to an old address. And if they no longer get the mail there, one day their bank account can be taken. And we have to just unravel the whole thing and start all over again. So you have to be careful and let the IRS know where you are in order to make sure all your rights are protected, especially if you haven’t filed returns. Some people say it’s great. They don’t know where I am. No, that’s a bad thing. You want them to know because you want to know what they’re doing against you. Now, that doesn’t mean you call them because I had a client recently represented him for many years. And he owed a few bucks more for this year. Instead of calling me, he called the IRS. And he opened up a flood gate. They’re threatening. Now they defaulted his installment agreement. And all he had to do, he had been a client for many years, is he could bother me. He didn’t want to bother me, bother me. I would not have done what he did. And we would now not be basically starting all over when we could have nipped this in the bud right away.

Host 15:33
Well, and I was going to relate that topic back to what you were mentioning about scammers contacting people on the phone. I’m sure they can be very assertive, very aggressive, very intimidating.

If a taxpayer were to contact the IRS directly via phone, how aggressive, assertive can that agent be at times, but also how stressful and ill-advised is that on the behalf of the taxpayer to do that?

Steven 16:00
It’s generally not a good idea for a couple of reasons. First of all, you could wake them up. They could start giving you some deadlines. And all of a sudden, change the whole course again.

They may even, if you owe a lot of money, send the case to the field. Now you have a revenue officer working on it. The other problem with calling the 800 number is the folks there don’t understand that they can say, I don’t know. They’re always going to give you an answer. And it’s not often correct. You would be shocked at the bad information they get. People call me and they say, well, I called them and I smoked somebody and I have their badge number, which of course doesn’t matter. You get somebody different all the time. It doesn’t matter who they spoke to. And they told me to do innocent spouse. And it’s like, you’re not even married. What are we talking about here? They just say things and it doesn’t mean it’s right. But if you want to get an answer you like, just keep calling and ultimately you’ll get an answer you like. It may not be right, that’s not the point, but it will be what’ll make you happy for that moment.

Host 17:09
Wow. Well, it certainly streamlines the process. It makes it correct and accurate by working with Steven Klitzner, tax attorney, FloridaTaxSolvers.com online, 305-682-1118. So yes, it can’t be said enough.

You need to go with proper representation if you’re having any kind of a tax problem and it doesn’t cost anything to see what kind of problem you may or may not even have by reaching out to Steven Klitzner, tax attorney, FloridaTaxSolvers.com. So lots of great information, but we need to caution people. We’re hearing about the big, beautiful bill on Capitol Hill, which may or may not move forward. We’re hearing about cutbacks with Doge and as well as the state level. And of course, our state legislature is probably not going to have a budget for another month or more. That may give people a sense of security and complacency. We’ve talked about it with cutbacks and personnel, including the IRS, but they’re still going after taxpayers.

Steven 18:11
Oh, they are, and they’re using AI now, which they just did something that they haven’t done in over five years. The people at Automated Collections, the 800 number people who are handling cases, not people in the field, just started issuing levies. Bank accounts, wage levies, it started last week, and the problem is they don’t have people now that are going to handle the phone calls, they’re going to handle the appeals. I was told that appeals in South Florida is usually up to date. There are now 600 cases in the queue waiting for someone to get to them. So it’s a mess.

And when the computer generates a problem, there may not be anybody to call to stop the problem. It’s going to be a real, you just have to avoid it. The lesson of the day, other than don’t get scammed, is don’t think they’re bluffing.

Host 19:12
Yes, take them very seriously and again contact Steven Klitzner should you have any concerns or questions regarding the IRS and your status. The best way to go about it is contacting 305-682-1118 floridataxsolvers.com, the law office of Steven Klitzner. Well, Steve, that’s a ton of great information this morning. Anything though that we should be focused on that we missed talking about so far.

Steven 19:43
Well, no, and we talked about having a great weekend, so we didn’t miss anything.

Host 19:48
Well, happy Memorial Day to you and your family, and I certainly hope you have some time to enjoy that and reflect a little bit, and we will talk again very soon. Thank you so much for being here.

Steven 20:01
Thanks, Michael. Take care. You do the same. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Host 20:04
Steven Klitzner, the law office of Steve Klitzner, tax attorney, floridataxsolvers.com. Great information there this morning as we move through our morning.