I had a credit card issued to me from Bank of America. My financial difficulties started when I lost my job and the card was closed. Sometime after while I was on military active duty status - they attempted to contact me. I was not able to respond to their correspondences and the debt was placed on my credit report as a " public record ''. I called the bank to find out if they would take a settlement offer so that the offensive unpaid public record could be changed to paid/settled. The representative XXXX responded that they were not able to collect from me as a XXXX for {$3400.00} was issued to the IRS by BoA in 2011and neither can they remove nor change the balance of {$4000.00} from my credit - a letter was never sent to me advising me of this. Per the IRS website the company should instruct the credit bureaus to remove the debt as a XXXX is a debt cancellation which is reflected as a earning for the debtor and any applicable taxes will be charged. In addition to that, I believe the bank receives a tax write off for these debts. 
