Hue T Vang

Earlier this year, I got a letter from the local IRS that I am being audited and as with everything having to do with our government, I was outraged and asking myself the 5-Ws. This turns out to be when I started in the business and doing my tax return but I had put my expense in the wrong location and for that, the IRS counted them as my income and so instead of making no money, I now made double and we now owed the IRS $10,000. Yes! I said every possible words that I can remember when I am angry! It doesn't make any sense especially when I was doing my 5-9 job, we made more money but didn't owed less tax but now I made no money but owed $10k- I was just out of it!! What's frustrating is the fact that we went in and have a talk with the local IRS representative about what had happened, they stilll stand behind what they did which they are considering my expense as my income because I had to pay tax on my expenses!!!! What the heck is this??? Pay tax on my expense as income???? What country I am living in??? At this point you probably realized that I am over my head and walked out.

While this is happening and you all might want to do this is you are not already doing it is that you had to document every little thing that you do from going to lunch with who, time, date, what purpose, etc. Your daily appointment is with who, name, places, time, etc. etc. Look if you are showing 10-20 house per day to 5-6 people, do you have have the time to do all of these things? I can't afford to hire a secretary in the car to write down these little things. After the 2nd review I ended up not getting the credit/deductions for these items due to lack of support/documentations but I did however got credit for the gas and others such as supplies.

To make my story short, I ended up calling my attorney to represent me and we all should have one especially in this business or any business for that matter. He called the local IRS office and talk to the representative about the illegation but also said that they were right and the same with the supervisor who said they were also right in adding my expense as my income. So since this is not going anywhere, we ended up taking this to appeal court or next level in IRS and finally after several months, my attorney and I sat down and talk with representative and explain everything to him once again so he noted and says he will get back to us shortly. After this, we felt optimistic unlike the two previous sessions we had with the local IRS office where nothing good is happening but fighting words because they are always right because they are the IRS.

So after about 3-4 weeks, I got a call from my attorney that he has good news and that I now owed the IRS....guess how much???? $300 for overpayment that year and additional $200 for interests since that year! I told my attorney, I can live with that. My thought in this whole thing is that how could this happened and the fact that now they knew what had happened, they still refused to change it and like my of us who doesn't have anyone to help nor knew what to do and in many instances-would simply wish this to go away and pay the money. $10,000 is not a drop in the bucket for me especially having a family to feed.

What I learned from this is that we all, regardless of who we are nor what branche of government we work for, at some point in time should lower our standards and realized that we do too make mistakes and be a man or woman about it instead of making other people's life miserable. Just say,"sorry, I made a mistake, let's fix it now!" and then move on with life. Yes, simple as that!!!!

Let me know what you think and perhaps share you experiences with me if this ever happened to you or someone you knew.

There are too much foreclosures out there now and most of them are just sitting there. There are a lot of reasons as to why but I am not going to get into that but what I do want to get into is the ease of accessing those properties. I worked with several investors that mainly buy foreclosures and I have to say, one of the hardest thing is having access into these properties. Not all but some of these many foreclosures agencies don't have people to answer the phone on the weekend and when you want to bring someone through while driving by, you can't because no one answers the phone.

I think one way and many agencies have realized this is that they can sell more when more people can get into the property easier and I am not promoting this company nor gets paid for saying this-Accushow-which has 24/7 live people answering the phone or online access 24/7 as well. I think this is a great idea especially for those home that are foreclosed and are vacant should be on here or any other one similiar.

For me, I would rather show a home that I can show right away to a buyer not having to wait the next day or two. My buyers are ready to make a cash offer now! And for those agencies that don't even answer the calls back ever, what's the point of selling/listing a home if you don't answer the phone nor return agents phone calls???? Unless you are picking and choosing whose phone call you want to answer. I hope that's not the case!

I just had to do this recently too and frankly-I don't think many agents are up to it and that is having to drive to the listing office to pick up the keys just to show their propery and bringing it back. Who has that kind of time not to mentioned giving you the wrong keys!!!! Agents and seller should make it as convenient as possible for other agents to show their property especially now when the inventory is off the chart.

Don't get me wrong and I understand that sometimes you have sellers that wanted that but I would let them know that having restricted access will lessen the possibility of selling the home faster.

Anyone ran into these issues or feel the same way????

I am sure we all have ran into buyers that simply call the numbers on the sign and hoping to speak to someone with their native language. I would like to learn as much languages as I can but I can speak two languages fluently and understand three other languages partially. What do you do when you are in this situation where you have no idea what the buyer is saying not to mention you can't even make out their name? If you happen to run into a Hmong buyer, please don't forget about me. I can definitely help you out and can definitely do referrals. I am here for you all so utilize me please at least get your listing sold.

I have my share of experiences working with many different ethnic groups. I think Asian buyers are a bit different when it comes to buying real estate. My thing is that they all want the perfect home for the least amount of money. I mean everyone wants this but it's an unrealistic goal. My Asian buyers doesn't believe that. What's your take on this and any experience???