More than 500 years ago, the Florentine statesman, Niccolo Machiavelli, warned: A prince…must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to avoid traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those who wish to be only lions do not realize this.
And never is the need greater to imitate the fox than when dealing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Several years ago, a private investigative agency found itself in serious trouble with that agency.
One of its employees had suddenly quit the company—leaving behind a major financial disaster.
That employee—whom I’ll call Pete—had been tasked with sending payroll tax records to the IRS. The company’s owner, Bill, assumed he had carried out his assignment.
Until he learned from the IRS that they had never received the records.
Consider the potential consequences:
- Failing to timely and properly pay federal payroll taxes results in an automatic penalty of 2% to 10%.
- Similar state and local penalties apply.
- Failing to properly file monthly or quarterly returns may result in additional penalties.
- Failing to file W-2 Forms results in an automatic penalty of up to $50 per form not timely filed.
- A particularly severe penalty applies where federal income tax withholding and Social Security taxes are not paid to the IRS.
- The penalty of up to 100% of the amount not paid can be assessed against the employer entity as well as any person (such as a corporate officer) having control or custody of the funds from which payment should have been made.
About 70% of the annual revenue collected by the IRS comes from payroll taxes. Under-reported and unpaid employment taxes account for about $72 billion of the United States tax gap. So the IRS makes the collection of payroll taxes a high priority.
No doubt about it—Bill was facing serious trouble.
What to do?
Fortunately, Steve, one of Bill’s employees, had a B.A. in Communications and had worked as a newspaper reporter.
When Bill told him of the calamity he was facing, Steve offered his best advice: Immediately contest the charge that he had been delinquent in providing the records. And explain to the IRS—in writing—what had happened.
Bill agreed.
First, Steve interviewed him at length to make certain he fully understood the circumstances leading up to his present crisis.
Then Steve sat down and typed up a letter—on office letterhead stationery—-to the IRS. Letterhead would give it an official appearance—and Steve wanted every advantage he could get.
Steve offered a straightforward presentation of what had happened: Pete, the number-two man in the company, had been entrusted with submitting payroll tax records to the IRS. But, nursing a grudge against his employer, he had dumped the records in a box and stashed this in a locked filing cabinet.
Then he had given notice and left the company. Later, an investigation of the office turned up the records—as well as the revelation that Pete had often used his office computer to access pornography.
In his letter, Steve emphasized that Bill’s company had previously had an unblemished record for meeting its payroll tax obligations on time. And he stated that the newly-found records had been sent to the IRS by registered mail.
Finally, Steve wrote that Bill was prepared to fully meet his financial obligations to the IRS. But he asked that Bill not be penalized for the irresponsible actions of a single, disgruntled employee.
The result?
Bill ended up paying only those monies that he legally owed. He was not forced to pay a penalty.
So what are the lessons to be learned from this episode?
- In dealing with an agency as powerful as the IRS, don’t ignore its letters.
- You have nothing to gain by pretending it will go away. It won’t.
- If you owe money, don’t deny it.
- Remain calm, even if you feel angry or afraid.
- Don’t use profanity or insults.
- Don’t try to play tough-guy with the IRS. Even the Mafia fears this agency.
- And with good reason: Al Capone didn’t go to prison for murder or bootlegging. He went away for income tax evasion.
- If you have a legitimate reason for having missed a payment, say so.
- Remember that everything you say to the IRS—verbally or in writing—is considered evidence given under oath.
- If you lie and get caught, you can face perjury charges as well as those for failing to comply with tax laws.
- Offer to fully pay any monies that you legally owe.
- If these amount to more than you can meet in a single payment, say so. Ask the agency to set up a plan by which you can pay it off in installments.
- If the agency balks at cooperating with you, contact a veteran tax accountant or attorney.
- The best accountants or attorneys for dealing with the IRS are former agents now working in private practice. They not only know the tax laws; they know the best ways to short-circuit an IRS audit and/or penalties.
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IDEALISM DIED WITH RFK: PART ONE (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 10, 2020 at 1:37 amHe remains forever frozen in time—young, vigorous, with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice calling on Americans to do better for those less fortunate.
It’s been 52 years since his life was brutally cut short—yet he remains forever the age at which he died: 42. Born in 1925, he would turn 95 on November 20 if he were alive today.
And he exuded an idealism which seems totally out of place with today’s “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” politics.
On March 16, 1968, from the Caucus Room of the Old Senate Office building, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy declared his candidacy for President of the United States.
Eight years earlier, on January 2, 1960, his brother, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy had announced his own candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination from the same place.
Ten months later, on November 8, that campaign had ended in victory with his election. And that victory, in turn, ended in bitter sorrow with his assassination two years, 10 months and two days later on November 22, 1963.
Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign would not last as long as his late brother’s. Nor would it end in the victory he and his supporters yearned for.
Robert F. Kennedy
Eighty-two days later, he was dead—shot in the back of the head by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Arab furious at Kennedy’s avowed support for Israel.
For Kennedy, making up his mind to run for the Presidency was no easy task.
Since the assassination of his brother, millions of Americans had assumed—as his admirers or detractors—that he would one day become President.
For his admirers, there was an element of “the once and future king” about this young, intense man with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice.He—they believed—was the man who would somehow avenge his martyred brother by restoring “Camelot” and returning youth, energy and idealism to the White House.
A playwright—Barbara Garson—had even written a 1967 satire depicting then-President Lyndon B. Johnson as the MacBeth-like murderer of John Ken O-Dunc. In the end, he was confronted and killed by Robert Ken O’Dunc.
His detractors saw him as a ruthless upstart who wanted to foist too-liberal policies on the United States. They distrusted his sympathy for the downtrodden—especially blacks and Hispanics. Worse, they saw the Kennedy family as trying to found a dynasty of Presidents that could last until the mid-1980s.
But the real Robert Kennedy was long torn between running against Johnson—whom he had long personally loathed—and letting someone else do so.Kennedy’s hatred of Johnson—and his irrational belief that LBJ was somehow responsible for his brother’s death—was well-known. And Kennedy feared that if he ran against Johnson, his many enemies would charge he was doing so out of personal animosity.
And there was another reason: Johnson, who had won the Presidency in a landslide in 1964, was certain to seek re-election in 1968. If Kennedy challenged him for the nomination, it might well split the party and result in the election of a Republican that November. And he—Kennedy—would be blamed for it.
Throughout 1966-7, Kennedy was urged to run against Johnson. Still, he dithered.Then, on March 12, Minnesota United States Senator Eugene McCarthy entered the New Hampshire Democratic primary against Johnson—and won a surprising 42.2% of the vote to Johnson’s 49.4%. Four days later, Robert Kennedy announced his own candidacy.
McCarthy’s supporters were outraged: Their candidate had dared to do what Kennedy had not—directly take on Johnson. And now that he had shown it could be done, the opportunistic Kennedy had jumped in.
On March 18—two days after announcing his candidacy—Kennedy gave his first campaign speech at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. This was the heart of conservative country, and Kennedy didn’t know how his audience would accept many of his decidedly liberal proposals.
“Do you think they’ll boo him?” his wife, Ethel, asked a friend before the speech. “Will they hate him?”
Arriving at the university, Kennedy ate breakfast at the student union—and told a group of university officials and student leaders: “Some of you may not like what you’re going to hear in a few minutes, but it’s what I believe; and if I’m elected President, it’s what I’m going to do.”
Kansas State University
As events unfolded, he—and Ethel—had no reason to worry.
Kennedy had served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. Yet he had not limited himself to simply fighting organized crime and enforcing civil rights. He had aggressively urged his brother, the President, to take a hard line on fighting the Communist forces in Vietnam.
But now he did something almost no other politician had—or has—ever done: He publicly accepted responsibly for the disaster the war had become since 1965:
“Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions that helped set us on our present path.
“It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of the successive governments we supported.”
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