Sophie Kosofsky
Revenge of the Comma
Kosofsky was a case about a $70,000 tax bill that resulted from a punctuation mistake. (Yep, really)
Ms. Kosofsky worked in the film industry building movie sets, and she received a 1099 for $750. However, the director, an Italian, wrote this amount as $750,00. (in Italy, commas are used to separate numerals and decimals instead of periods) The IRS recorded this as seventy five thousand in income and proceeded to make an assessment and a wage levy. (which due to address changes, Ms. Kosofsky didn't learn about until it happened)
I was able to fix the matter internally with the IRS and the state agencies by persuading the Collections Unit to grant us a collection hold while an amendment could be processed. Ultimately, the wrongly garnished funds were returned.
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