Four years ago, a $20,000 check from the IRS arrived in Wilson Perry Kirby’s mailbox. He knew he hadn’t earned it, so he didn’t spend it.
The 77-year-old Coopertown, Tennessee farmer left the money untouched in his bank account and worked with his accountant to return it. But instead of voiding the error, the agency started charging him interest for holding money it had mailed him by mistake. The next year, the IRS used his $1,800 tax refund to cover that interest, and by July, it threatened to take his property.
“She didn’t make a mistake, I didn’t make a mistake, they made a mistake,” Kirby told NewsChannel 5.
He spent four years trying to make things right while disconnected letters kept arriving from different regional IRS offices. None of them were talking to each other. “I wish they would get it straightened out,” he said. “And get one person to work on it, instead of sending these letters from all over the United States.”
Two years into the fight, his wife, Norma Jean, died.
Local reporting broke everything loose. NewsChannel 5’s Hannah McDonald aired an investigation that pulled more than half a million views on YouTube in its first weekend. Senator Bill Hagerty said his office would investigate. Then John Rich, the country musician appointed by President Trump in July as U.S. Special Envoy for American Landowners, saw McDonald’s reporting on social media and took the case.
By early September, Kirby had his $1,800 back, and the interest charges were gone. Rich drove out to the farm with two apology letters from the agencies involved.
Both Rich and McDonald credited Kirby, who spent four years refusing to let it go. “I’m hard-headed, and I get set in my ways, and I’m that way,” he said.
“I’ll tell you. If more citizens had your attitude, things would get fixed faster,” Rich told him.
If you’re stuck in something similar, the Taxpayer Advocate Service is an independent office inside the IRS that helps people resolve problems the normal channels won’t.
