They padlocked the doors and auctioned the equipment off for a few cents on the dollar. Then in 1977, they turned their attention to our family’s home. I came home one day and my mother handed me a letter from the IRS. She said, “What do you make of this?” I read it and said, “It looks like they’re going to take the house.” She wanted to know what we could do about it. Though I had no answer, I we
nt to a law library near our home in St. I starting fumbling around in the tax code and literally stumbled onto an area of the law deals with taxpayers’ rights and limits the IRS’s power. I didn’t get six pages into that part of the code and found that the IRS was proceeding illegally to seize our home. So I did what any eighteen-year old would do—I sued the IRS! I soon found myself in a federal courtroom in Minneapolis in front of a judge and opposed by an IRS attorney from Washington, D.C. After hearing arguments from both the IRS’s attorney and me, the judge declared that I was right and slammed his gavel. I won the case! Interestingly, dozens of my father’s friends were in the courtroom that day, many of whom had their own tax problems. By the time I got home, they were lined up at the door to talk with me. They asked, “Can you help with my tax problem?” I said, “Hey, I’m undefeated so why not?”
Since that time, I have helped thousands of people solve every kind of tax problem you can imagine, and some you can’t. Because of my experience, I have come to believe that there is no such thing as a hopeless tax case. There’s always a way to fix the problem if you know what your rights are. Daniel J. Pilla
For over three decades, Daniel J. Pilla has been the nation’s leader in taxpayers’ rights defense and IRS abuse prevention and cure. Regarded as one of the country’s premiere experts in IRS procedures, he has helped countless thousands of citizens solve personal and business tax problems they thought might never be solved.
