How a Maryland Farmer Got $30,000 Back From the IRS

Farm owner wins back money from IRS

South Mountain Creamery farmer and owner Randy Sowers on why the IRS took his money.

A Maryland dairy farmer who had nearly $30,000 taken from him by the IRS

The government announced the decision in June to return the funds, which were taken in February 2012 through civil forfeiture laws, to South Mountain Creamery owner Randy Sowers.

During an interview on the FOX Business Network on Monday, Sowers explained why IRS took the money.

“We do a lot of farmers markets and have a store on the farm where we take in a lot of cash,” he said. “We normally just deposit the cash with no problem. One day my wife had $12,000 dollars and the [bank] teller asked her next time keep it under $10,000, that way she wouldn’t have to fill out a lot of paper work. So that’s what she did for 32 weeks that summer and February of the next year, the Justice Department showed up with some agents and was asking me about our accounts. I had no problem talking to them because we didn’t do anything wrong that I knew of. We claimed all that money on our taxes."

He added: “When they asked where all the money comes from, I said ‘well sometimes we do $12,000 or $15,000 in a week.’ Then they kind of stopped the questioning and handed me some paperwork and said they’d seize my account of $63,000. The account was pretty much empty; I could use it if I wanted to after that, but they took all the money.”

Sowers explained what he had to do in order to get the near $30,000 back in his account.

“We got in touch with the Institute for Justice, which is a bunch of young lawyers that had been working on civil forfeiture,” he said. “I had testified before the House Ways and Means [Committee] twice and demanded that they give us our money back. After four and a half years last Friday, I finally got the money back.”