A Pennsylvania man got the shock of a lifetime when he opened his state’s $34 billion bill.
“I knew it was an obvious mistake. I make less than $100,000 a year, so there was no way I was going to owe anything close to that.”Barry Tungart told News 8 About a shocking failure.
Lanchester County residents said the mysterious letter was one of two they received in the mail over the weekend.
The first thing he opened was a refund check from the federal government for more than $900.
Mr. Tangert’s euphoria was quickly dashed when he opened a revenue claim notice from the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue claiming he owed an astonishing $34,576,826,561.47.
The total was so huge that it couldn’t even fit on a single line of paper.
Mr. Tangert soon realized that was a mistake. This staggering figure is more than three times the $11 billion that America’s richest man, Elon Musk, said he owed the government in 2022.
For Tangert, it’s still a mystery how the mistake ended up on his doorstep.
“We don’t know if there was a computer glitch during the submission or if it was a typo on the part of the tax representative,” Tangert said, adding that the tax representative noticed the error in the 2022 return and submitted an amendment. He pointed out that he did.
He contacted the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue’s customer service, which also offered little help to the bewildered man.
“The first thing he said was, ‘You’ve had a good year,’ and I said, ‘I hope so,'” Tangert said.
Fortunately, the State Department resolved the issue, but determined it was simply an incorrect number entered into the system.
Tangert’s case was an isolated incident, the Department of Revenue told News 8.
