<prompt> Human: My father is 58 now and not in the best of health, and its time to start considering what will happen when he passes away. Heres the situation:1 The last time I know he filed a tax return was 20 years ago when I was a child, I know this because he sometimes brags about not having filedpaid in so long.2 There is no convincing him to try and pay whatever back taxes he owes, and he honestly has no means to do it anyway.3 In that 20 years, he has worked a few jobs that I know have claimed his wages with the IRS, but he has still not filed his own returns at all. 4 He has been self-employed for a large part of those two decades, and Im not sure how much he made but it was always enough to pay his bills and rent, so Im guessing it was over the limit for needing to file.5 He has no assets, no savings, no pensionretirement, and does not own property.My questions:A What will happen to his IRS debts when he dies? Will they fall on his next of kin me and my brother?B What should hewe be doing? It would take divine intervention to get him to contact the IRS and try to resolve this through legal means. Is there something my brother and I should be doing to protect ourselves?Assistant: What will happen to his IRS debts when he dies? Will they fall on his next of kin me and my brother?No, however if your father is married, his spouse would be responsible for those backtaxes and filing for the current year of his death. Essentially all debt would be passed to your fathers estate which would consists of checkingsavings, pensionretirement and any propertybelongings. The IRS and creditors would try to collect against these. However, if you dad has a life insurance policy that is paid out to you and your brother that is generally off limits since the insurance company pays that directly to the survivor and it is never in the deceased name. B What should hewe be doing? It would take divine intervention to get him to contact the IRS and try to resolve this through legal means. Is there something my brother and I should be doing to protect ourselves? I mean if he hasnt done it this long, I dont think there is much you can do. Unless you are worried about IRScreditors going after your mother if they are still married. However, you dont need to protect yourselves. Also while the IRS wont even try to come after you, credit card companies will, however you are not liable, so just ignore them. The way you and your brother personally will be affected most is that anything you might inherit will be less or nothing. Human: Ill just be inheriting his clutter regardless, ha. Its good to know they wont come after me though. That would be a fitting last gift from the old bastard. Assistant: Thats not how it works. You get nothing if he owes 20 years of taxes.Human: I mean literal clutter. Old crappy furniture, boxes of papers, broken appliances. If the IRS wants to assess a value and claim it all, they are welcome.  <response>: At least that means you wouldnt have to clean up and dispose of it all, right? 