<prompt> Human: Not sure if this is the right place for this post, but Im trying to help out a friend and thought Id start here. My friend who works as a bartender making about 30k a year recently received notice that he owes about 500,000 in taxes and 100,000 in penalties to the IRS. They claim he earned 1.2 million in 2015. During 2015 he was frequently day trading stocks on a margin account. From what I understand he would borrow about 20,000 to buy and sell a stock in the same day. I believe he inherited about 50,000 which he grew up to about 90,000 before eventually dropping down below his starting amount. At the end of 2015, he actually claimed to have lost 3,500 on his trading. Apparently his brokerage account reported 1.2 million in gains unclaimed on his taxes. I believe he filed with taxslayer and didnt report anything from his stock trading, except possibly the 3,500 loss. Could he actually be responsible for these taxes?Any ideas how it could be that he owes this much?How can he get out of paying them?EDIT: Thank you everyone for your advice. I have forwarded it to him, and hopefully he will seek proper professional help.Assistant: He should probably talk to a tax attorney. And I hope he still has all the data paperwork from how much he really made lost during that year. Human: I know he threw out most of the letters that his brokerage firm, TD Ameritrade, sent him since they were mainly confirmations of trades. Is there something he should request from them?  <response>: Itll all still be online if it was just 2015, they need to keep those records. Tax attorney will know how to get them. 