IRS says I owe them money that I didn't make and I can't renew my passport until the issue is solved. Help!

I have a trip to Europe planned for the end of July this year, so in January I sent in my passport to be renewed. Last week I received a letter stating it cannot currently be renewed due to "seriously delinquent tax debts." I immediately called the IRS and waited on hold for two hours to see what the problem was. As it turns out in 2018 multiple companies claimed to have paid me via 1099, to a total sum of $172,000. I'm here to tell you folks that I did not see a penny of it. However, the IRS says I owe them $82k. I obviously have no plan to pay them any of that, but I also need my passport by July. Hopefully this is the right sub for this because some advice is very much needed.

Edit: there was a gentleman at the company I worked for that ended up stealing some money from the company. How outlandish would it be to think that he may have gotten my info from our office and used that to make money from these companies?