A 76-year-old widower and farmer in Tennessee, named in reports as Wilson Kirby, did the honest thing after the IRS mistakenly deposited a tax refund of around $20,000 into his account that he was not owed, and promptly alerted the agency to the error. Rather than being thanked for his honesty, he says IRS staff have since mishandled the situation so badly that it has thrown his finances into disarray, with the agency now threatening to seize his farm to recover the funds.

According to the report, the mix-up has left the elderly farmer facing the prospect of losing property that has evidently been central to his livelihood, despite his attempt to do the right thing by flagging the erroneous payment rather than keeping it. The case has been highlighted as an example of bureaucratic failure, with the IRS's own error compounded by what the farmer describes as incompetent handling by its staff, turning a good-faith disclosure into a serious financial threat against him.