A couple from New Jersey say they lost their life savings to scammers – and was then told by the Internal Revenue Service they owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes on the stolen money. <\/p>\n
Because of changes to the tax code that were passed in 2017, they’re not alone. <\/p>\n
Scammers first contacted Madhu Anat by sending her fake documents, including bogus court transcripts, purportedly showing that she was the victim of identity theft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel terrible,\u201d says Madhu. \u201cIn terms of having lost everything that I had earned and saved for my old age.”<\/p>\n
The scammers told her every account needed to be verified with the treasury. They said the only way to do that was for her to transfer the funds. <\/p>\n
Madhu was cautious at first but researched the names in the documents, which checked out to be real FBI agents. <\/p>\n
She was convinced and transferred her entire retirement account \u2013 worth over $1 million.<\/p>\n
All the money is now gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d think I\u2019d have suspected something, but at that point, I really didn\u2019t.\u201d Madhu says.<\/p>\n
She says she was recovering from back surgery at the time, and was \u201cin heavy sedation for the pain, and my mind was not there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite unnerving,\u201d says Mark Urso, Madhu\u2019s husband. \u201cAnd definitely gave us pause to realize, OK, what are we going to do now? You know, how are we gonna survive?\u201d<\/p>\n
To their surprise, losing everything was just the beginning for Madhu and Mark. <\/p>\n
Because she\u2019d cashed in the retirement account, she now owed income tax on the proceeds \u2013 hundreds of thousands of dollars more. <\/p>\n
The couple says they shouldn\u2019t be punished for being victims of a crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never would have handed the money over to anybody else if we didn\u2019t believe that the federal government was requiring us to do this,\u201d says Mark.<\/p>\n
In the past, the law would have prevented scam victims like Mark and Madhu from being taxed on income that was stolen from them. <\/p>\n
But in 2017, that all changed when Congress passed the Trump tax cut. <\/p>\n
Included in that bill is a clause that says losses due to theft are no longer deductible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just victimizing the person all over again.\u201d says Beverly Brown Ruggia, of Citizen Action.<\/p>\n
She says the government shouldn\u2019t penalize tax payers in cases like this. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe money\u2019s lost, and the person has not gained anything,\u201d says Brown Ruggia. \u201cIt\u2019s gone into the ether, basically. And there\u2019s no reason for the federal government to tax people on that kind of disappearing money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madhu and Mark are trying to negotiate with the IRS. At the very least, they\u2019d like to pay less than the full amount owed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could go back to work, but I\u2019m 71,\u201d says Madhu. \u201cI don\u2019t know if somebody will give me a job.\u201d<\/p>\n
As it is, the couple says they\u2019ll probably have to sell their home to pay the bill. <\/p>\n
Mark is hoping for some relief. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt might be that we never end up paying this off before our time is done on this earth,” he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple from New Jersey say they lost their life savings to scammers – and was then told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-195465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}