
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 29, 1993                   TAG: 9307290100
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CENTREVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

LEVY WON'T HOLD IN THIS TAX FLOOD

Dave Lampson figures he'll have his new tax bill paid off in about 11 million years - not counting late fees.

His bill: $68 billion.

"It's mind-boggling, ' he said. "That's more than my share of the national debt."

Lampson, a 36-year-old systems engineer from Centreville, said he is paying off an old, $30,000 Internal Revenue Service debt with $500 monthly payments.

So the bill he got this week seems a tad inflated.

IRS spokesman Wilson Fadely told The Washington Post that as many as 1,000 erroneous bills with "very high figures" were mailed from the agency's Kansas City, Mo. regional office within the last week.

Fadely said the glitch occurred when someone tried to reprogram a computer to stop mailing bills to people in flood-ravaged states who have been paying off back taxes in installments.

But for Lampson, the most astonishing thing was the reaction he got from IRS officials when he tried to get the bill corrected.

"I talked to several people who didn't think it was out of line," he said. "They were very nonchalant, as if I were questioning a $100 charge."

by CNB