San Diego, CA
The IRS has a method of ‘last resort' to collect overdue taxes: Revoking your passport
- By law, the IRS must notify the State Department if an individual’s federal tax debt is “seriously delinquent.”
- This is a large federal tax debt — of more than $62,000 in 2024 — that the taxpayer has repeatedly ignored.
- If taxpayers don’t remedy their overdue bill, the government will generally deny their passport application and can revoke or limit their active passport.
Travelers, be warned: The federal government may revoke your passport if you ignore a big tax bill.
Such punishments have become more frequent in recent years, experts said.
Federal law requires the IRS and Treasury Department to notify the State Department if an American has a “seriously delinquent tax debt.”
This is a large federal debt — of more than $62,000 in 2024 — that the taxpayer has repeatedly ignored.
The debt threshold includes aggregate total federal tax liabilities, plus penalties and interest, levied against an individual. It’s adjusted annually for inflation.
The State Department generally won’t issue a new passport and may revoke or limit an existing one in cases of serious delinquency, according to the IRS.
The government typically uses this enforcement mechanism — which has been in place since 2018 — as a sort of last-ditch effort to collect unpaid tax levies, experts said.
Should those debts remain unpaid, the potential consequences are ample: Travelers might not be able to take trips overseas until they’ve resolved their debt. Expats and those who travel abroad for business may have to return to U.S. soil indefinitely until their tax case concludes, for example, experts said.
Revoking a passport is “a step of last resort,” said Troy Lewis, a certified public accountant based in Draper, Utah, and an accounting and tax professor at Brigham Young University.
“How do you get rich folks’ attention regarding paying their taxes? Just make sure they can’t summer in Europe,” he said.
‘It gets people to call the IRS’
Demand to travel abroad has surged as the Covid-19 pandemic has waned. Americans applied for about 21.6 million U.S. passports in fiscal 2023 — a record number, according to the State Department.
Todd Whalen, a CPA based in Denver, has seen tax enforcement efforts involving passports ramp up over the past three years.
“This is becoming more and more of a big deal,” said Whalen, founder of Advanced Tax Solutions, which helps consumers and businesses resolve tax debts. “We’ve gotten several [cases] this year.”
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In one instance, a client only found out his passport had been revoked while at the airport trying to fly to Mexico for a trip to celebrate his son’s high school graduation.
“It works,” Whalen said of the collection effort. “It gets people to call [the IRS].”
A State Department spokesperson declined to provide annual statistics on how many taxpayers had their passports revoked or denied. The IRS didn’t comment by press time.
All other collections must have been ‘exhausted’
It can be “quite easy” for overdue tax debts to exceed the $62,000 threshold, according to Virginia La Torre Jeker, an attorney who specializes in U.S. international tax law.
Americans living abroad, for example, may have “significant penalties” for not filing various foreign information returns, she said in an email.
Debts can also include any tax levies owed by individuals, she added. Those may be business taxes for which the taxpayer is personally liable or trust fund recovery penalties, she said. (The latter relate to withheld income and employment taxes like Social Security taxes or railroad retirement taxes.)
However, revoking a passport isn’t generally the government’s first way to collect such overdue debts, experts said.
The IRS must have already “exhausted” all other typical collection activities, said Lewis, owner of Lewis & Associates, CPAs.
Generally, that would mean the taxpayer hasn’t responded to prior IRS notices of a federal tax lien, for example. (A lien is the government’s legal claim to a debtor’s assets like real estate and other personal property. It isn’t a move to collect said property, though.)
Various courts have upheld the federal government’s ability to revoke passports in order to collect tax debts as constitutional, Lewis said.
He pointed to two recent cases as examples: Franklin v. United States in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and Maehr v. United States Department of State in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
In the former, the defendant, James Franklin, owed about $422,000 in taxes for failing to file accurate tax returns and report a foreign trust of which he was the beneficial owner. The IRS ultimately filed a tax lien and levied his Social Security benefits, and the State Department later revoked his passport.
“It seems pretty well established this is something [the government] can do,” Lewis said.
Travelers have remedies available
The State Department doesn’t revoke a passport straight away. When the IRS certifies debt as seriously delinquent and alerts the State Department of that, it will mail the taxpayer a notice — CP508C — outlining the potential implications of that classification.
If an individual then applies for a passport, the State Department would generally deny and close that application if the person doesn’t make efforts to pay their debts. Such efforts might include paying the balance in full, entering into a payment plan or making a compromise agreement with the IRS.
The debtor would still be able to use an active passport, if they have one, unless notified in writing by the State Department that their passport had been revoked or limited, the IRS said.
“IRS looks at various factors, including taxpayer noncompliance in the past and taxpayer failure to cooperate with the IRS” when opting to revoke a passport, according to La Torre Jeker.
The State Department can limit the passport’s use only to return travel to the U.S., thereby preventing the person “from being trapped in limbo” if outside the country, she said.
The IRS sends taxpayers Letter 6152 before revocation, asking them to call the IRS within 30 days in order to resolve their account and avoid passport cancellation, she added.
Still, sometimes passport denial catches debtors by surprise when they travel, said Whalen at Advanced Tax Solutions.
For example, the IRS may have the wrong address on file — especially if a taxpayer has moved — and mail notices to the wrong place, Whalen said.
“A lot of times, they don’t know they have a balance due until they … show up at the airport,” he said.
A person was fatally struck by a train in the Cardiff neighborhood of Encinitas early Wednesday afternoon, a sheriff’s official said.
The collision was reported just after 1 p.m. in the area of Chesterfield Drive at San Elijo Avenue, Lt. Joe Berry said.
The Sheriff’s Office’s Railroad Enforcement Unit is investigating the incident.
Chesterfield was briefly closed between San Elijo and Coast Highway 101 as first responders worked, but the road has since reopened.
In a post on social media platform X, the North County Transit District warned people to expect significant delays for Coaster service. Tracks were closed between Solana Beach and Encinitas stations, it said, and a Breeze bus bridge would be available for passengers between those stations.
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SAN DIEGO (CNS) — Attendance at Balboa Park’s museums are down 34% on average since paid parking went into effect inside San Diego’s urban park, according to data released Tuesday by the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership.
In the analysis released Tuesday, the partnership found that between January and March of this year, attendance is down by that average of 34% compared to the previous year, with some institutions dropping by 60% over the same period.
“We’ve appreciated the city’s recent willingness to listen and take initial steps in response to community concerns,” Balboa Park Cultural Partnership Executive Director Peter Comiskey said. “However, the latest data make clear that those changes are not reversing the decline in visitation, and the impacts on our institutions are becoming more serious. We are urging additional action by our regional leaders before potentially irreversible damages take hold, and jobs and beloved programs or even organizations are lost.”
The report comes out as Mayor Todd Gloria’s draft budget for fiscal year 2027 proposes slashing arts funding by more than $11 million as a way to grapple with a structural deficit of more than $118 million.
Some of the park’s larger institutions predict more than $10 million lost in revenue from the lowered attendance alone, and jobs and program losses are a real threat, Comiskey said.
Visitors to Balboa Park were asked to pay to park their vehicles in city lots starting in January, breaking a tradition of more than 100 years of the city’s crown jewel being free for those in private vehicles.
San Diego residents are now able to purchase a monthly, quarterly or annual parking pass at a discounted rate by visiting sandiego.thepermitportal.com/. Residents can pay $30 for a monthly parking pass, $60 for a quarterly pass or $150 for an annual one. Non-residents can pay $40, $120 or $300 for the same levels.
The fiscal year 2026 budget passed last summer anticipated $15.5 million in parking revenue from Balboa Park. That number assumed $12.5 million in fee parking in Balboa Park and at least $3 million from zoo parking.
A revised figure presented to the City Council in November instead found the non-zoo parking might bring in just $2.9 million, or a decrease of $9.6 million from initial estimates.
The city originally planned to begin charging for parking in October, but delays prevented that and three months of revenue from happening. Expected parking rates have dropped as well.
The parking passes come under three pricing tiers, Levels 1, 2, and 3, based on demand and proximity:
— Level 1 lots, located in the core of the Central Mesa area, would be subject to the highest rate — $16 per day and $10 for up to four hours for nonresidents and $8 per day and $5 for up to four hours for city residents. These include Space Theater, Casa de Balboa, Alcazar, Organ Pavilion, Bea Evenson, Palisades and South Carousel;
— Level 2 lots would be priced at $10 per day for nonresidents and $5 per day for residents. These include Pepper Grove, Federal, Upper Inspiration Point and Marston Point;
— Level 3 lots would also be priced at $10 per day with the first three hours free, with a resident rate of $5 per day with the first three hours free. This includes the lower Inspiration Point lot.
The Office of the Independent Budget Analyst estimated revenues in this fiscal year from the non-zoo parking would be close to $4 million, still well short of plans.
The zoo, which operates on an independent lease from the city, will allow members to continue to park for free. For non-members and non-residents, general parking is $16 per vehicle, per day, $44 daily for oversized vehicles per day. City of San Diego resident rates are half that.
Revenues from the parking fees paid within the park must be spent on Balboa Park. The funds can support ongoing maintenance, infrastructure, and visitor amenities and may include road repaving, lighting upgrades, sign improvements and landscaping.
Gloria backed off some of the parking fees in February, citing overwhelming negative feedback.
City residents who have verified their address will again be able to park for free in the Pepper Grove, Federal, Upper Inspiration Point, Lower Inspiration Point, Marston Point, Palisades and Bea Evenson lots.
“Good governing also means listening. I’ve heard from residents and from members of the City Council about how this program is affecting San Diegans who love Balboa Park as much as I do,” Gloria said.
“That feedback matters, and it’s why I am eliminating parking fees for city residents in select lots in the park. This change will reduce revenue, and I have received a commitment from the City Council president as well as other council members to identify other service-level reductions in order to keep the budget balanced.”
Verified San Diego residents will still be charged to park in premium lots such as the Space Theater, Casa de Balboa, Alcazar, Organ Pavilion and South Carousel lots. The cost is $5 for up to four hours or $8 for a full day. Enforcement will now end at 6 p.m., instead of 8 p.m.
More than 3,000 San Diegans have registered to be verified for the resident free parking program, and the city has collected nearly $700,000 for operations and maintenance in Balboa Park.
Despite these changes, Comiskey and the cultural partnership said more must be done before summer, busy season for the park and the museums and cultural institutions within.
“The data show we are at a critical moment,” Comiskey said. “As we approach the summer tourism season, we need a clear, region-wide recovery solution that restores accessibility, rebuilds public trust, and sends a strong `welcome back’ message to residents and visitors alike.”
Copyright 2026, City News Service, Inc.
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