Q: Last fall, I started receiving letters from the office of Robert Boich who is supposedly special counsel for the State of Ohio Office of the Attorney General. The letters claim that I owe the state of Ohio taxes for living there in 2007. I called them and told them that I did not live there. I also called the Ohio department of taxation. They told me to send them proof of non-residency in the form of a pay-stub from the beginning and end of 2007 and that would take care of it. I did this, only to receive the same letter from Boich’s office again in January of 2016. I called them again, and they told me that I need to send them a copy of my 2007 W2, federal and PA returns! I do not have these. I was told by my tax accountant to make sure this is legitimate because that was more than 7 years ago. They are claiming that I owe them almost $4ooo including interest! They are threatening to attach my wages and they’ve already put a lien against my name. (South Park, PA)

A: It is either a scam or government ineptitude. Have you googled this man or called the Office of Attorney General of Ohio to see if he is real? All you can do is investigate it yourself. If it is not a scam, you will have to spend time gathering documents to send via certified mail to disprove the allegations to Ohio. Your claim that you don’t have old tax returns can be remedied. It takes 10 days to order tax transcripts from the IRS to prove where you live – IRS form 4507T can be submitted by fax and you will have this information available to you FOR FREE within 10 days. An attorney can help if you want to spend the money.