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Will JK Harris and TaxMasters Join the Tax Lady in the Late-Night-Tax-Problem-Solver Body Count?

“Pennies on the dollar” may be a great pitch on cable television, but it’s not a surefire business plan. Desperate taxpayers who have paid money up front to JK Harris to resolve their tax debts at a discount are joining the IRS as potential “pennies on the dollar” creditors now that this leader in the tax settlement industry is filing for bankruptcy protection.

This is the second major blow this year to cable TV ad revenues. Earlier this year “Tax Lady” Roni Deutch gave up her law license in the face of charges that she took fees up front to resolve tax debts and failed to follow through.

Tax nerds see the late night ads when we get home and wonder how these outfits manage to get such great deals out of the IRS when getting the Service to actually forgive tax debts is like pulling teeth from a grumpy rhino for the rest of us.


TaxMasters now stands as the biggest remaining player in the TV tax settlement business, but they have their own problems. They were de-listed last month from the OTC Bulletin Board to the pink sheets for failing to file their 10-Q due August 15. The last reported trade for Taxs.pk is at 13 cents. They have also been sued by the Minnesota Attorney General for allegedly deceptive practices. ABC News reported on the suit:

The Minnesota attorney general says many of the company’s employees are skilled tele-marketers who have little knowledge of the complicated tax issues faced by people who have fallen behind in filing their returns or making tax payments. “When you call, you think you’re talking to a tax professional,” said Swanson. “You’re really talking to just a salesperson who’s trying to get you to sign up.”

So maybe the secret is that the late night settlement outfits are staffed by telemarketers who just happen to be awesome at selling pennies-on-the-dollar deals to the IRS. If that’s true, though, they seem to be having a lot of trouble turning what would truly be a remarkable and valuable skill into profits.

Ja Rule Wouldn’t Be in This Mess If He Had a Decent Accountant

Let’s be honest though, “decent” is probably pushing it. A “below average” accountant could have slapped some numbers on a 1040 and hit the button.

Ja got twenty-eight months for failing to file income tax returns and claims that “[I]n no way attempted to deceive the government or do anything illegal,” he said. “I didn’t know how to deal with these finances, and I didn’t have people to guide me, so I made mistakes.” Anyone near Oneida that’s looking for a new client should feel free to drop by the correctional facility to make a pitch. [HP]

Illinois Tax Policy, Once Again, Fails to Impress

Known smartypants George Will took the state of Illinois to task over the weekend for their less-than friendly tax policy. He tells an anecdote of Tim Storm, a business owner that relocated his company to Beloit, Wisconsin from Rockton, Illinois which is a whopping five miles away. This was, at least in part, due to the state’s recently enacted “Amazon tax”:

Illinois, comprehensively misgoverned and ravenous for revenue, has enacted what has come to be called an “Amazon tax.” It requires Amazon and other online retailers to collect the state’s sales tax. Amazon and many other retailers responded by severing their connections with their Illinois affiliates.

Not only is GW all over Illinois’s decision to go after online retailers for sales tax, he also reminds everyone that the pols in the Land of Lincoln did a number on individual and corporate income tax rates:

In January, a lame-duck session of Illinois’ legislature — including 18 Democrats who were defeated in November — raised the personal income tax 67 percent and the corporate tax almost 50 percent. This and the increase — from 3 percent to 5 percent — in the tax on small businesses make Illinois, as the Wall Street Journal says, “one of the most expensive places in the world to conduct business.”

So as you can see, Illinois is on the ropes for its fiscal (mis)steps. Of course, Will isn’t the first person to call out the state for being a little tax happy, as Americans for Tax Reform was all over Illinois for this back in January. Of course, ATR managed to criticize the policy in a snarky Swede fashion as opposed to a bowtie-wearing polymathic diatribe. For obvious reasons, we’re partial to the former.

Working up a tax storm in Illinois [WaPo]