4 ms·

Debts of $50,000 of more. Sounds like rich people problems to me.

• 13of40 11y ago
  A $50,000 debt he can't pay off does not a rich man make.
  • supercanuck 11y ago
    tell that to the The Carlyle Group
• LanceH 11y ago
  $50k in taxes can be a surprisingly low threshold. If you run a retail business you might do a couple million in sales to clear $100k for yourself. A simple misclassification of your labor or materials can put you $50k in debt to the IRS. In the scheme of how much money passes through a small business owner's hands, $50k isn't a lot of money even if $50k income is. I had someone classify some non real property purchase from me as a service (personally taxable). I had completed all tax forms correctly. The IRS had accepted the taxes I paid on the profit of the property. But the people I sold it to claimed it was a service, so the IRS thought I had $15k income that I hadn't reported. I wasn't anywhere near the $50k mark (closer to $5-6k), but all it took was one person claiming something sketchy to make me delinquent in the eyes of the IRS, even when I had done my taxes correctly.
  • mikeash 11y ago
    Note that the law requires far more than just being delinquent. You have to be to the point where you've failed to work out any sort of payment plan and they're filing liens, and it excludes any case where there's a pending hearing on the matter.
    • LanceH 11y ago
      True enough. I was just trying to make the point that hitting a $50k threshold may be difficult for someone on a W2, it can come up pretty quickly for someone scraping by if they employ anyone or sell anything.