COOPERTOWN, Tenn. (WTVF) — A Coopertown man says the IRS sent him a $20,000 tax refund by mistake, and that trying to return it cost him years of frustration, interest charges, and eventually his entire tax refund.
Wilson Perry Kirby, 77, a retired Montgomery County Highway Department worker who describes himself as plain-spoken and country, received the erroneous refund on May 10, 2022. He says he immediately tried to give the money back, but ran into wall after wall, even with his accountant's help.
"She didn't make a mistake, I didn't make a mistake, they made a mistake," Wilson Perry Kirby said.
Within the first weekend, the story drew more than half a million views on YouTube.
Country music star John Rich, a friend of President Trump who also serves in a Department of Agriculture role advocating for rural landowners, saw my reporting on social media.
“Well, first of all, I have to thank you for doing this story because that’s the only reason I knew about it,” John Rich said. “I said, well, Mr. Kirby is a landowner, and his land is under threat, and he didn’t do anything wrong, and he is at his wits’ end with this thing, and I want to see what I can do.”
Nobody is taking Mr Kirby’s farm. This is about to get HANDLED.
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) July 24, 2026
Volume Up🇺🇸 👇👇 pic.twitter.com/AEtkBWamne
The two met in person on September 15.
"Can you hug me? We did it. We finally did it did it!" Rich said. "And I had never met you until this second, but you were my neighbor from the get."
"Well, if you go back far enough, John Rich, we all kin," Kirby said.
At the beginning of September, Kirby finally got back the $1,800 refund the IRS had withheld to put toward the interest it charged him, bringing the case to a close.
"And if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have gotten nothing done," Kirby said to me.
As I've said since day one, Kirby has also done significant advocating for himself throughout this process and never gave up, something he credits in part to his own stubbornness.
"I'm hard-headed, and I get set in my ways, and I'm that way," Kirby said.
Rich credited Kirby's persistence as well.
"I'll tell you. If more citizens had your attitude, things would get fixed faster," Rich said.
Running into problems with the IRS?
The Taxpayer Advocate Service can be a good first step. It is an independent organization within the IRS that helps taxpayers navigate issues and resolve problems.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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