The U.S. Attorney’s Office is suing a Port Chester doctor and his wife, on behalf of the IRS, to collect $1.2 million they allegedly owe on unpaid personal income taxes dating back to 2009.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton is seeking to seize and sell a house in Rye that James R. McWilliam and Catherine O. McWilliam own.
“While the IRS has been levying Mr. McWilliam’s wages, this levy is insufficient to recover the outstanding liabilities,” according to a complaint filed on May 16 in U.S. District Court in White Plains. “As a result, without a foreclosure sale, the IRS is unlikely to recover full payment on the liabilities.”
The couple originally owed $616,358 for the 2009, 2010 and 2012 tax years. In 2019, the IRS filed several tax liens against the couple. The agency has levied Mr. McWilliam’s bank account and garnished his wages from Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital and then from White Plains Hospital.
The IRS says it has collected $517,279 and has made numerous more attempts to collect the rest. Since the 2014 tax year, the complaint notes, the McWilliams have filed no federal income tax returns.
Now the IRS says the couple owes $1.2 million, including penalties and interest. Nearly $328,000 of that sum is owed solely by Mr. McWilliam.
The McWilliams live in The Mariner, a rental apartment on Willet Avenue along the Byram River in Port Chester.
And they own a 4-bedroom house on Wainwright Street, near Playland Park in Rye, according to the complaint, that they bought for $830,000 in 2005. So the prosecutor is asking the court to allow the government to foreclose on that property to enforce the tax liens.
The Zillow online real estate marketplace estimates that the Rye property is worth $1.8 million. The McWilliams still owe about $575,000 on the mortgage, according to the complaint. That would leave nearly $1.3 million, based on the Zillow estimate, to pay the taxes and costs of foreclosure.
Efforts to find contact information for the McWilliams, to ask for their side of the story, were unsuccessful.
