ok here is the story... For the last 13 months in a row (I haven't checked my report in awhile), I've been getting state tax liens put on my CR from the state of Indiana for not paying sales tax. the problem is, i never owed sales tax, about 10 years ago, i was suppose to do a one day trade show that ended up getting canceled, so i had applied and got a sales and use permit. since the show didnt fly, i never did any business, i never filed. mind you, this is 10 years ago (I moved to florida 8 years ago), and it just now started showing up on my report. anyway, i call them and it turns out i owed them $131,000! I guess if you dont file, they charge you what they "think" you should owe based on other similar businesses. but to make a long story short, they understood, happens alot they said, they are sending me a form to fill out (close of business related stuff) and said once i get it in to them, they will mark the liens as paid/satisfied. (Whew!) now heres the thing... i still have 13 liens on the CR, even if they are marked paid/satisified, is that good enough? or should I do something to get them removed (After they make them paid).. which affects the score most, paid/satisfied or not there in the first place? I really didnt owe them money, so its false reporting, no? good news is, my CR is almost cleaned up from a very bad period in my life. my score was as low as 420, I did my repair the hard way, I waited it out... things are falling off every month, now i only have a couple more judgments and collections to go (less than 6 months to SOL for them) so glad to get it over with..
If the liens should have never been there in the first place, you need to fight to get them completely removed. You don't want any tax liens on your credit reports, regardless of if they are updated as paid. Dispute them through the CRAs as incorrect, provide any documentation that you have, and get in touch with the state of Indiana again to argue that simply updating them as "paid" isn't going to cut it. It was their mistake in the first place, so they shouldn't be reported as liens on your credit reports. They should be removed altogether.
the problem is dealing with them takes forever. i literally started calling them at 10:00 am today, and didnt get to the right person until 2:00pm.. everyone gave me a phone number to a dept that didnt handle it... So my thought was, let them mark them as paid, then start a dispute to fight them.. this way if it goes wrong, at last they are paid. im afraid that with all the bureaucracy at this states gov't, that it wont get resolved. I am going to make sure i document and get as much in writing as possible to build the case. the thing is, they weren't wrong for what they did.. as far as they knew, i owed the taxes. now that ive filed a "final return" from 10 years ago, all the liens should be invalid.
Believe me, I understand. The thought of ever having to contact or visit anything government run makes me cringe. Talk about inefficiency... Anyway, it sounds to me like you're saying you "should" have filed a final return, which you failed to do. And because you never filed a final return they just charged you an arbitrary amount which is now meaningless because you've actually filed and no tax is due. In my opinion, the liens should still be completely removed from your credit reports since you never actually owed any money. Marking them as paid will do nothing for your credit scores, as they will still be negative marks. Like I said before, I would still dispute them through the CRAs as incorrect. If that's unsuccessful, then you can decide if you want to spend the time/effort dealing with the state gov't. I think it would be worth it, as these liens could sit on your credit reports for up to 7 years.
as it turns out, all looks good. they sent me like 60 letters saying that my explanation was satisfactory (one for each occurrence) so after calling them back, i talked to the court clerk and was told they will all be "expunged", and they will send me more letters. then just dispute them with the CB's, and they wont find a lien anymore and should remove it. She also told me, this happens frequently (just not to my extent of going 10 years and building up to 130K+), and this is what has been done in the past. so hopefully, this will put an end to it.
I have a similar problem, but I only had one lien before I realized I should have filed 0 sales/taxes owed. I'm having a hard time following exactly what you did to rectify the situation? I went to the Department of Revenue about a year ago and they marked it as paid/dismissed as well. How do you get it removed? It's been a real drag as it comes up during screening processes for internships and causes other issues for no real reason! Thanks! My thread: creditnet.com/Discussions/credit-talk/t-state-tax-lien-71628.html
