of a good man. From the comments at Maguire’s:
Today I received a letter from the IRS that my 2007 tax returns are being audited. Less than one month after launching TaxCheatStamps.com.
There’s a list of “proposed changes” they want to make to my 2007 return that would require me to pay almost $14,000 in taxes, penalties, and interest. All the “discrepancies” they list are bogus and I have documentation to prove it. I keep meticulous records and always pay every cent I owe to Uncle Sam. We’re going to talk to a lawyer ASAP.
There is no doubt in my mind that my family is being politically persecuted for making a mockery of our new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the Obama administration.
Honestly, we’re scared. We haven’t done anything wrong (and I’ve got the documents to prove it in storage) but now the IRS is coming after us and they can destroy our lives with a flick of their pen. I don’t want to sound like a coward, but I’m so scared I’m literally shaking. We’ve got a seven-week-old daughter.
I suppose it’s a sort of honor to be persecuted like this. I’d really appreciate it if people would blog about this and link to this post. (And a prayer wouldn’t hurt.)
Related, via Sarah W in comments.
Tim Geithner
I am sure you are going to be fine, but avoid the Wesley Snipe defenses. They don’t seem to work.
In Brazil, they refer to their federal revenue department as O Leão,, “The Lion.” It’s not half as rapacious as our IRS on a bad day.
Careful guys. I was married to an IRS person for many, many years. It is highly unlikely that this is retribution.
1) It is quite common for it to take 18 months to 2 years to be audited (i.e., audited for 2007 tax return in 2009). It takes that long for them to get it together.
2) Even if a high-ranking official could start an investigation for personal reasons: a) the service couldn’t pull it together in a month (seriously!) and b) you’d have to be purty darn powerful to warrant that kind of attention. No offense, but I highly doubt it.
3) The IRS is a government agency and although I saw a lot of good hard-working folks there when I ran in those circles, it is also filled with a lot of stereotypical “government workers.” Boy, the stories I could tell! It was early in his IRS career that hubby and I decided government jobs are often just another form of “welfare.”
4) It is a bureaucracy. It just doesn’t move very fast or very efficiently. Imagine the DMV purposely singling you out to take away your driving privileges. How hard are you laughing at the thought of that? Same thing.
And although this has nothing to do with the point, as a dutiful ex-wife of an IRS dude, I must remind folks that the IRS are not evil thugs. They merely follow the laws that congress passes. It drives me insane to see congressmen complaining on camera about how evil the IRS is. The IRS is exactly as evil as congress tells it to be. But I digress.
Getting a letter from the IRS is no picnic (sadly, I’ve gotten three in the past year). And it is more than a little anxiety-producing. But if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve done nothing wrong. And although it is within the realm of possibility that powerful people might be able to manipulate the process, it is just not possible even for them to investigate every single Tom, Dick, & Harry that said bad things about the government.
If you are an extremely powerful person then you are probably aware of that by now (for instance, because you have your tax attorney’s number on speed dial and he picks up your call any time of the day or night). If that isn’t the case, sorry, it makes a “fun” story to tell the guys at the diner, but you’re not being specifically targeted.
By the way, the computer system “kicks out” some things that “look fishy” to the computer. Often they are resolved without you doing anything (this is only the case if the letter actually says that). In most instances (and it sounds like this one), just provide documentation and you will be on your merry way. Best of luck!
you like free speech yes? you fascists like gov.
I was going to order one when i clicked the link and found they were gone. But this was back during hte Bush years.
If you can document everything you’re on pretty steady ground. The IRS is out to get as much money for the government as it possible can.They know they are intimidating. Never go to an audit interview yourself, ever. Your accountant or lawyer should handle this for you.
Don’t be completely paranoid, but be very cautious. A good CPA or tax attorney is a very good idea and money well spent.
panther girl
Unfortunately while the majority of IRS agents are probably like any other government agency and do NOT single out anyone, all it takes is a handful of people with axes to grind to make people’s life a living hell.
Years ago my then husband and I had an tax accountant do our taxes … she was a tough old gal who had done my parents taxes for years (and her late mother had done my parents’ taxes even before that). Her passion, and the other family business that her husband ran, was breeding, raising, training race horses. The walls of her office were covered with the official track photos of her horses crossing the winning lines. Due to the costs, her horses were syndicated.
Somewhere along the line she pissed off the wrong people. One day this gal in her late 60’s, who sat at her desk hooked to an oxygen tank due to emphysema, endured a door kicked in by the police and a raid on her office directed by the IRS. They hauled away all her file cabinets (giving her a small receipt that said “five file cabinets A thru Z”. While this was happening an agent sat across the desk from her looked at her pics of horses and said “nice photos…who did you have fake ’em for you?” The IRS took the attitude that the horses did not exist, they were fake. Of course she went to court and a federal judge was livid that her original documentation plus her clients’ original files were with the IRS and she hadn’t gotten any detailed receipts. He charged the IRS with compliance and you know what they said? “Sorry your honor but we cannot locate where we put ’em.”
She fought them for almost ten years…she got her files back at one point but she lost tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. An IRS agent was quite blunt with her..they would never settle because they’d be around long after she was dead. She finally just dropped her suit.
She’s not the only person I know who has suffered at the hands of the IRS. It only takes one or two people with an agenda…ask Joe the Plumber about his state records.
panther girl: perhaps the bureaucracy moved slowly in the past & still does, but now that bureaucracy is mostly Obamatrons and subject to “the Machine’s” marching orders. I wouldn’t put anything past them. Ask Joe the Plumber.
Darleen,
I don’t doubt your story at all. And I’m sorry that your friend endured that treatment. As with anything, though, when I hear of aggregious treatment by the IRS I always wonder what’s the rest of the story. Again, I am not suggesting that you are not accurate in your telling. And I am well aware that IRS agents are only human (and humans with real or perceived power at that). But I do know that many of the “injured taxpayers” who told their sob stories to our local newspapers never told the whole story. And the IRS is bound by confidentiality so they cannot comment and tell their side. Again, I am not at all suggesting that your friend wasn’t wronged, but just saying that of the other folks out there, not all of them are quite as wronged as they claim. (Any more than the homeowner’s currently being foreclosed on were all model mortgage-paying citizens.) But all of the stories add up to make us more afraid of the IRS than we actually have cause to be. (Which is not to say we shouldn’t be afraid/cautious at all…)
Sara-
This whole conversation is making me long for the days when we sat around playing poker with ex-hubby and his work friends so that I could hear the current tales. It is the case that the new administration has moved very quickly in a lot of areas. And it is also the case that they (with the help of the media) have had no problem defiling people’s names (and don’t even bother to be ashamed of it). I can’t imagine a “grand conspiracy” in the IRS (at least not under the previous Treasury Secretary) but certainly, especially high up, some individuals could be immoral, drunk with power, or (at lower levels, as in the Joe Plumber case) too stupid to follow the rules.
meya-
I suspect Sara was not suggesting the entire IRS had been repopulated, but that many of the folks who already work there (probably at least 52% of them, and I’m guessing many more) happen to now be Obama fans. Wasn’t that the case with the Joe the Plumber incident? It was some low-level person who decided she would do the right thing by her Messiah and took it upon herself to delve into Joe’s records? (I know you’ll correct me if my memory is off.) On the one hand, there is a huge code-of-conduct issue against that kind of thing at the IRS (and, in the past they have tended to enforce it pretty harshly), but one can never underestimate corruption (at the higher levels) and general knuckle-headedness (at the lower levels).
Best bet? Never pay taxes. When they try to audit you, claim to be an illegal alien…err, “immigrant” and that should wrap it up. Hell, they might even give you some money. You might want to practice speaking improper English in advance.
Just stay cool. If you have truth on your side you should prevail. As always the best defense is an offense. If this was me that was getting audited I would be requesting proof that I was delinquent. They may not be particularly helpful but you have achieved the higher ground. Believe it or not there are some real people in the IRS who will listen and try to understand. The problem is finding them.
Like you people said about Daschle, try paying your taxes.
And Geithner. And Rangel. And Schumer. And so on, and so forth . . .
But hey, it’s not as though the Clinton admin, from whom they’ve taken all of these advisers, ever went after someone with the IRS because they regarded them as political enemies . . .
“Don’t be paranoid …”
It’s not like the inefficient incompetent government, just because you deign to ask a pointed question or two, is going to launch secret investigations into your background.
Oh wait … that is precisely what happened to Joe The Plumber, isn’t it?
Is it paranoia if they really ARE after you?
The people who are now in power will do anything – ANYTHING – to keep it, including launching IRS audits against you. So, don’t criticize. Do everything you can to minimize your profile. Don’t cause trouble. Don’t make waves. Don’t demand extra “rights.”
Or they’ll come for you.
In case your “good man” isn’t only snide:
You’re not going to get anywhere pointing out the horror of the state being turned against a citizen who defies it to someone whose job is to turn the state against citizens who defy it.
“That’s different.”
That’s what they all say.
When he says ‘there is no doubt…’ there is nothing BUT doubt.
Chalk it up to the fear of having had nearly 30 years to re-distribute
99% of the wealth to the top 1/2% and the realization that reaganomics
(lower case intended) is being overturned by it’s signature avarice in a very short period of time.
meya – they were ordered to take those stamps down because they were counterfeiting. Postal stamps have a value.
http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/money_illustrations.shtml
The link explains how stamps can be used for illustration purposes.
STFU, Miss KKKleo.
Cleo’s such a tool.
Nah, Carin — tools are useful.
That is profoundly incoherent even for ‘cleo. Does that really make sense to you when you read it back to yourself?
“When they try to audit you, claim to be an illegal alien…err, “immigrant†and that should wrap it up. ”
Around here the term is “OUTLAW”
Meya and Miss KKKleo must be cousins.
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