IRS Settles Suit Alleging Agency Spurred Suicide

MANCHESTER, N.H. — A woman who accused the IRS in a $1-million lawsuit of driving her husband to suicide, said Wednesday that the agency has agreed to a settlement that will wipe out her tax debt of more than $400,000 and allow her to keep her home.

“What happened to me could have happened to any taxpayer,” Shirley Barron said.

The Barron case, one of the first lawsuits filed under a 1996 amendment to the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, was cited last fall during Senate hearings into IRS abuses.

Bruce Barron, a 47-year-old lawyer, killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage in 1996 after learning that a bank was foreclosing on the couple’s home in Derry because the IRS had placed a lien on it.

At the time, the couple owed $330,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest.

After her husband’s death, the IRS continued to pursue her. The agency seized a Cape Cod vacation home, Barron’s wages and retirement account, and placed liens against her life insurance benefits.