28 May, 2010

Tax Excuses 591 - 615

591. "As mentioned in our letter dated 14 January 2009 (enclosed for your easy reference), the accounting team of our [a named country] office just started to handle the set of account of [a named] business in mid-2007. As the new team is new to our [named] business, it took us extra time to co-ordinate and obtain all necessary information for issuance of audited financial statements for 2007. Please be advised that we did the return filing immediately after the issuance of audited financial statements for 2007 and we have no intention to delay the return filing or tax payment. Given our clean past record and we settled the tax payment on-time, we sincerely hope that the penalty of HK$20,000 for late submission of the [appellant’s] return for the year of assessment 2007/08 could be waived." (The company had been let off without a penalty on a prior late filing.) [Hong Kong Inland Revenue Board of Review Case No. D15/09 (25 May 2009).].


592. I didn't authorize the IRS to disclose any of my Federal income tax information to the Illinois Department of Revenue (he failed to file his Illinois State Income Tax return). [Depatment of Revenue v. John Doe, Illinois Dept. of Revenue Office of Admin. Hearings, Dkt. No. IT 09-7 (15 July 2009).].


593. "Respondent also argues that OPR’s complaint should be dismissed because of actions taken by a Revenue Officer for the IRS. Respondent alleges that the Revenue Officer referred his failure to timely file his tax returns to OPR because the Revenue Officer was unhappy with Respondent’s zealous representation of a client." (The Respondent was a partner in a large Boston law firm who had formerly been an attorney for the IRS and who had late filed or nonfiled all of his personal income tax returns for tax years 2000 through 2005. He was suspended from practice before the IRS.) [Director, Office of Professional Responsibility v. Kevin Kilduff, IRS OPR Complaint No. 2008-12, Office of Chief Counsel Appellate Authority (20 January 2010).]


594. The Department of Taxation & Finance's audit methodology was not reasonably calculated to reflect the proper tax due, but rather to achieve the highest possible tax due (the restaurant didn't produce sales records, and the manager refused to allow an observation) [Matter of Huaquechula Restaurant Corporation, New York State Div. of Tax Appeals, Docket Nos. DTA 822285 & 822298, 25 March 2010.].



595. I didn't file my tax returns on time because my husband threatened to leave me if I did, and this would have caused me financial injury. My husband promised to file the returns but then told me that we didn't need to because there was no tax due [Wolfgram v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2010-69.].



596. The IRS shouldn't levy on my delinquent taxes because the IRS Hearing Officer at the Collection Due Process hearing was not properly appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate [Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Michael Cornwell & Hilary Iker v. Commissioner, Docket No. 09-704, U.S. Supreme Court (9 December 2009), cert denied ___ U.S. ___, 130 S. Ct. 1301, 175 L. Ed. 2d 1076 (2010).].


597. "Citing a Wikipedia article, Ms. Lam essentially argues that, like Secretary Geithner, she used TurboTax, resulting in mistakes on her taxes." [Lam v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2010-82.].


598. I did not consider myself to be in "business" and therefore did not think I was required to maintain records to account for the gross receipts from my E-bay sales (she was an IRS Revenue Officer whose unreported Ebay income exceeded $9,000 in 2004 and $18,000 in 2005) [Andrea Fabiana Orellana v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2010-51.].


599. Tax returns have never been important to me, so I never filed them [Matter of Anonymous, Defense Office of Hearings & Appeals, ISCR Case No. 08-05883 (23 March 2010).].


600. "Applicant has not made any payments to the IRS since 2000 and attributes any potential tax liability to the IRS’ failure to properly calculate the differences in the cost of certain public stock he sold and what he sold the stock for following the collapse of the company in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 2001." [Matter of Anonymous, Defense Office of Hearings & Appeals, ISCR Case No. 09-00918 (29 March 2010).].




601. I broke my ankle and had surgery in March 2001, and then got sidetracked from filing. "I will say that it was like an ostrich with the head in the sand. I felt overwhelmed." … "I was so overwhelmed with my illness and the real estate market wasn’t doing well." [Matter of Anonymous, Defense Office of Hearings & Appeals, ISCR Case No. 08-11885 (30 March 2010).].


602. My accountant filed my return late, and I also was severely disabled following back surgeries in 2005 and 2006 (the tax return was due on 1 May 2004 and the taxpayer did not provide the accountant with any tax information until 2006) [Virginia Tax Commissioner, Ruling No. 10-38 (8 April 2010).].

603. My parents' experience in fleeing Nazi Germany drove me to hide more than $10 million in secret Swiss bank accounts and evade the taxes on them [Curt Anderson, "Tax Evader who Blamed Holocaust gets 10 Months," AP, 23 April 2010, 07:50 PM GMT [United States vs. Jack Barouh, Case No. 10-CR-20034-AJ (SD FL)].].


604. My restaurant was a very rough neighborhood and if I had tried to collect the sales tax then people would have assaulted me [Matter of Royal Fried Chicken of New York, Inc. and Mohammed S. Uddin, New York State Div. of Tax Appeals, Docket Nos. 822557 & 822601 (29 April 2010).].


605. My wife, my daughter and I all had mental health problems, and I had trouble controlling my anger [McKenna v. Commissioner, T.C. Summary Op. 2010-58.].


606. I didn't withhold any employee payroll taxes because the people working at my cafe are relatives, not employees [Livingston v. Department of Consumer Protection, 120 Conn. App. 92 (Conn.App. 2010).].


607: "I regret to tell you that I forget to state my whole income. To be honest, I have no intention to hide by understating my income. The reason is that I didn’t get familiar with this application. In the application, I had ticked the 'Yes' box of part 4.1(5) of 'My employer(s) paid Salaries Tax for me' but didn’t know to fill in the amount of 'Salaries tax paid by the employer' of part 4.1(1) and thus leads to misunderstanding." (He had proffered similar excuses in 4 prior years for similar omissions, and had been assessed the Penalty Tax each time) [Hong Kong Inland Revenue Board of Review Case No. D42/09 (18 December 2009).].


608. After completing my federal tax return form, I determined that I owed taxes and did not have the money to pay them, so I decided not to file my income tax returns. ." [Matter of Anonymous, Defense Office of Hearings & Appeals, ISCR Case No. 09-05242 (16 April 2010).].


609. My continuing tax delinquencies were due to a memory failure from my brain aneurysm [Matter of Ronald A. Goldman, 71 A.D.3d 9, 892 N.Y.S.2d 324 (1st Dept. 2009).].


610. I did pro bono legal work for death row inmates, spent lots of time and money as a trustee of Skidmore College, and suffered from an Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder that caused me to attend to my work compulsively, but caused me to be careless about various personal matters, including those relating to health and finances [Matter of John J. P. Howley, 70 A.D.3d 218, 893 N.Y.S.2d 1 (1st Dept. 2009).].


611. The Notice of Deficiency issued by the Oregon Department of Revenue was invalid because it did not have a hand signature on it [Department of Revenue v. Faris, 345 Ore. 97, 190 P.3d 364 (2008).].


612. When my father passed away in 2004, I traveled to Philadelphia on several occasions to assist my mother, who had difficulty dealing with the tragedy (The tax return was due until April 15, 2005, and he could have gotten an extension. The tax return was not filed until October 2006). [Harris v. Commissioner, T.C. Summary Op. 2010-63.].


613. The solicitor who had been retained by the company to administer its operations and complete the VAT returns failed to do so and was an alcoholic, and the portacabins from which the company operated were burglarized and the computers containing the VAT information details were stolen [Pic Build Construction, Ltd. v. Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (No. TC00460, [2010] UKFTT 154 (TC), Appeal number TC/2009/13770, 1st Tier Tribunal, Liverpool, 9 April 2010).].


614. "Cash flow is critical to small business and when customers and contractors discover you are away and unable to chase them, more often than not promised payments fail to arrive or are delayed. We simply could not release funds until we had confirmed we had been paid." [Shaun Batchelor Electrical Contractors, Ltd. v. Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (No. TC00500, [2010] UKFTT 198 (TC), Appeal number TC/2009/15500, 1st Tier Tribunal, Leeds, 5 May 2010).].


615. I filed my 2003, 2004 and 2005 tax returns late because I was in several accidents that caused injuries and a prolonged rehabilitation and recovery (on each return she claimed car and travel expenses for her business, thus implicitly stating that she was able to work) [Heller v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2010-116.].