Trucker Life · Utah · November 9, 2026

Truckers: Lease Operator Describes Years of Unfiled Taxes

Illustration of a trucker reading a letter at a mailbox with a green semi and snowy mountains behind — Illustration for this story. Not a photo of a specific location.

Image caption: Illustration: AI-generated illustration, not a photo of the people, vehicles or places in this story. It shows a generic trucker at a mailbox beside a parked semi.

Benzinga coverage of a Ramsey Show call describes Amber, a Salt Lake City truck driver with 22 years on the road, saying she has not filed a tax return since 2014. She spent most of her career as a company driver and became a lease operator about two years ago.

Amber estimated she could owe about $20,000 for each of those two lease-operator years. She said she does not know what earlier years may involve because she never filed. Those figures are her own estimates, not an IRS bill.

Fire, fees and host advice

An apartment fire left her without a home for months, the account says. She reported no savings and no retirement money. A tax professional quoted $600 for each year of unfiled returns, with up to 12 years to sort out. Hosts urged her to learn the real number rather than guess, and noted that company-driver years may already have had taxes withheld from paychecks.

Moving from company pay, where taxes are usually withheld from each paycheck, to lease-operator income changes who is responsible for sending taxes in. Co-host Rachel Cruze suggested she contact the IRS directly to learn what she needs to file, and the hosts said a payment plan may eventually be needed.