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By Becky Jane Newbold
Managing Editor 

Lewis County Receives Partial IRS Refund

Attorney pushes forward in appeals process

 

January 2, 2020

Lewis County Mayor Jonah Keltner's office received two checks totaling more than $39,000 this week marked as refunds for interest and penalties paid in an ongoing appeal with the Internal Revenue Service.

A tax attorney hired by Lewis County Government was successful in recovering a portion of funds Lewis County paid in penalties and interest to the Internal Revenue Service late last year. And the proof arrived in the mail Monday in the form of two checks.

Attorney Gary R. Dettloff is handling an appeal for Lewis County.

The refund received this week may relieve some stress over Lewis County's General Fund which is $537,876.02 less than it was one year ago.

Totaling $39,159.12, $13,548.16 was refunded for June, and $25,610.96 for December of 2017.

Initially, Lewis County owed $279,923 to the IRS when a former employee failed to file 941 quarterly taxes for several months.

What followed was a fiasco that left Lewis County with a Notice of Lien against county-owned properties in September of 2019.

The quarterly tax had not been filed since the second quarter of 2016 when discovered in August of 2019. Lewis County self reported the failure and began properly filing. A Notice of Case Resolution was received.

Soon after, penalty and interest notices began arriving.

Phone calls to the IRS representative assigned to the case documented from February through July of 2019 went unanswered. In July, an IRS agent visited the Mayor's office.

A mutual agreement was reached that Lewis County owed $129,368.33 in back taxes, an amount the county paid.

A check for interest and penalties was hand delivered by Mr. Dettloff in the amount of $156,603.45 and the county was notified in November 2019 the lien had been removed.

To date, Lewis County has paid $5,000 in attorney fees.

Mr. Dettloff has an appointment January 23, 2020 to request further relief from the fines.

 

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