IRS Problems? Think your pension is safe….think again!
Risks to Your Pension
IRS problems can bring you and your family a lot of stress. You've labored hard all your life to be able to have a home and a car. Now they could be taken away by the IRS. They've served you notice stipulating that in order to pay off the tax debt you need to pay, your assets are going to be seized. They can do it. Can they take your car, your home, even your pension?
There are some assets that the IRS can't take to settle your tax debt.
- Furniture, food, fuel, and personal effects with a total of $2,500
- Clothing and school books
- Undelivered mail
- $1,250 worth of tools and job-related books
- Certain annuity and pension benefits, including Retired Serviceman's Family Protection and Survivor Benefit Plan, Special Pensions for Medal of Honor recipients, Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, and Railroad Retirement Act
- Some service-oriented disability payments
- Public assistance, job training, unemployment, and worker's compensation benefits
- The minimum amount exempt from a levy on wages, other income, and salary
- Deposit to the special Treasury Fund made by Public Health Service employees and members of the armed forces on permanent duty assigned outside the US
Your pension is at risk if you need to pay a considerably large amount to the IRS because certain annuity and pension benefits are not completely exempt.
Assets are seized in order, usually:
- Savings and checking accounts
- Vehicles – airplanes, cars, boats, recreational vehicles
- Life insurance
- Accounts receivable
- Stocks and bonds
- Wages
- Collectibles
- Real estate – recreational and investment
- IRAs, Keoghs, and pensions
- Your home
Pensions are low priority.
The IRS just seizes enough assets to pay the debt, though you should consider that interest and penalties are accumulating on top of it. Your pension is at risk if there are no other assets available to shoulder the tax debt.
If you have an IRS Problem and think you might need some help. Give us a call at (888) 438-6474. The call is free. Darrin T. Mish represents taxpayers all over the United States.
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Comments on IRS Problems? Think your pension is safe….think again!
The list of what's exempt from IRS seizure is quite small–and thus scary.
As a longtime animal lover, I wonder if IRS considers household and family pets as "personal effects"–or can it seize THEM, too? If so, how often DOES it seize a taxpayer's pet(s) in actual practice? I'm not talking about rare, exotic or expensive animals here, just "ordinary" pets.
What about cases where a taxpayer fearing he might not be able to care for a pet gives or sells the pet to someone else?
Or even dies and has willed the pet to someone else?
If the IRS can seize an innocent pet even in such cases, how often DOES it really do that?
If this is actually legal, maybe it's time Congress specifically exempt household/family pets up to a certain value from seizure, just as done in bankruptcy.