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You’re Not Alone If You Think Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Tax Plan Is a Gimmick

At a minimum, the Cain plan is a distributional monstrosity. The poor would pay more while the rich would have their taxes cut, with no guarantee that economic growth will increase and good reason to believe that the budget deficit will increase. Even allowing for the poorly thought through promises routinely made on the campaign trail, Mr. Cain’s tax plan stands out as exceptionally ill conceived. [NYT via TaxProf]

Threatening to Kill an IRS Employee Over the Phone Is Not Advised

Everybody admires a CPA who is willing to stand up to the IRS for a client. To a point.

A New York CPA went past that point, according to the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility. If the testimony of an IRS agent before an administrative law judge is to be believed, the CPA, George Diehl, is at least guilty of a social faux pas in a conversation with IRS Revenue Officer Miamouna Diakite when she refused to put a 45-day hold on collection of a client account.

From the ALJ opinion:

Diakite stated that Diehl refused to enter into an installment agreement. Diakite testified that he became irate and loud, saying that he had obtained holds on accounts routinely, and asked to speak to Diakite’s supervisor. Diakite told him that, pursuant to IRS procedure, her supervisor would call him within 24 hours. He insisted on talking to her supervisor immediately. Diakite then, also pursuant to protocol, told him that the account was then in “collection status” whereby the IRS “will” levy against Taxpayer 1’s bank account, garnish her salary and obtain liens on her real and personal property.

Diakite testified that Diehl became very upset and said “do you know what I do to people like you. I kill them.” Diakite replied “you don’t mean that, sir” and Diehl replied “I do. I do. I’ll kill you.” Diakite then sat at her desk repeating to herself aloud that Diehl said that he would kill her and he is in New York. She became frightened and then heard a male voice, not Diehl’s, saying “what are you doing?” and the phone was then disconnected.

The opinion never does say who the “male voice” belongs to. Somebody with better manners, perhaps.

The ALJ did believe the agent:

I find that Diehl threatened Diakite. His credibility was shaken by first stating that his words to her was that you are “killing me with your stupidity and then changing that testimony to state that you are “killing me with your bullshit.”

So for all of you aspiring CPAs out there, some lessons:

• Try not to let client tax matters get to a point where you have to argue on a hold for collection.

• Don’t threaten to kill the agents. They don’t like that, and it tends to make it more difficult to get them to help your client.

•Don’t be a pottymouth. That bad language completely blew it with that nice administrative law judge.

Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson Would Like the IRS to Quit Slapping Liens on People

Presumably this means celebrities too! That is, until the IRS can show that it’s actually an effective means of collection and not so ‘hard core.’

Olson has accused the agency of relying too heavily on an automated “one-size-fits-all approach.” She said the agency misguidedly files liens against people who have no money and no assets.

“Absent data that show liens make a meaningful contribution to revenue collection and especially in this economy, I find it unacceptable that the IRS continues to torment financially struggling taxpayers in this way,” Olson wrote in a news release accompanying the report.

Perhaps Olson has a point but then Robert Snell over at Tax Watchdog might not have a job and we’d hate to see that happen. The guy is like Raisin Bran™ on the celebrity tax deadbeat.

IRS’s ‘hard-core’ collection tactics needlessly harm taxpayers, report says [WaPo]