Barry Tangert, a resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was left stunned when he received a bill from the state for a staggering $34 billion. The baffling notice, claiming he owed over $34.5 billion in income, left Tangert in disbelief.
“I knew it was an obvious blunder. I don’t even make over $100,000 a year, so there’s no way I could owe anywhere near that,” Tangert told News 8 about the mind-boggling mistake.
The astonishing figure, which didn’t even fit on a single line on the document, surpassed anything Tangert could have imagined. It was more than triple the amount America’s richest man, Elon Musk, reportedly owed the government in 2022.
The origin of the error remains a mystery to Tangert. He speculated whether it was a computer glitch during transmission or an input error from his tax preparer, who filed an amendment after spotting an error on his 2022 return.
Despite reaching out to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue’s customer service line, Tangert found little help in resolving the issue.
“The first thing he said was, ‘You had a good year.’ And I said, ‘I wish,'” Tangert recounted.
However, the state department eventually resolved the issue, attributing it to incorrect numbers being inputted into the system. Fortunately for Tangert, what initially seemed like a financial nightmare turned out to be nothing more than a bewildering error.