Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. Imagine having built a successful business from the ground up, only to be audited wrongly by the IRS. This is what a family claims in a lawsuit filed against the IRS. The family claims that the US government caused their business to fail through no fault of their own.
What makes it even worse is that no wrongdoing was ever discovered by investigators. The lawsuit names 13 current and former IRS employees.
Todd Zappone received a call one day from one of his employees at his Ohio Scrap Corporation that his company was being raided. The police were there with bulletproof vests and all. His scrapyard was raided because they were believed to be evading taxes. Since the owner withdrew amounts of money from his bank in allotments less than $10,000, it appeared to the IRS as a tax evasion tactic.
After spending an entire day searching the premise, the police took all his cash on hand, which totaled $3.15 million—allowable under civil forfeiture laws. Zappone begged the police to count the cash and give him a receipt. The refused to give him the receipt and took the cash. When his money was returned, it was $1.89 million dollars short!
Check out more IRS News stories by clicking that link.