SO desperate that in addition to appealing his conviction on any possible grounds, that he has hired private dicks (allegedly!) to following Ponzi Schemer du jour (allegedly!) Ken Starr’s wife, Diane Passage.
Passage told the Post, “I was leaving, and I noticed two men trailing behind me. They stood out because they were wearing dark suits on a 90-degree day. They followed me for a block and a half, then I lost them because they were sweating so much. They contacted my doorman and my attorney, and said they wanted information that might help Snipes. He was a client [of Starr] in 2000 but before I met my husband. I have nothing to do with his taxes.”
So, naturally, this is all very confusing, as the connection between the pole dance master’s problems (frozen bank accounts) and Willie Mays Hayes’s problems (looking at 3 years in the joint for tax evasion) is basically nil.
The only that we can come up with is that Wes is reaching the obscurely known “celebrity realizes that they are for real, like really real, going to jail” freak-out stage.
Look, maybe if shotgun-toting IRS Agents kicked down your door and took your video games, a five-figure watch and a movie poster that has far more sentimental value than any of you can appreciate, then you might know Young Buck’s frame of mind.
If not, then you best button it.
Two days after every material possession in your house is taken away (and if you’re a hip-hop artist, material possessions are pretty much everything) you’re bound to re-examine your life.
Brown proposes having his label, Cashville Records, dock his pay $12,500 a month for 60 months, for a total of $750,000. The bankruptcy filing claims Brown earns a total of $19,170 a month.
The entertainer filed for Chapter 13 on Aug. 5. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge George C. Paine accepted the proposed plan and ordered the payroll deductions Aug. 20. Brown will be free to keep his additional income, including royalty payments.
In other words, he’ll be back to Scarface wallpaper in no time.
The big winner in this morning’s auction of some primo seats at Texas Stadium went to Hank Wendorf of Dallas-based Ticketsource.com.
There was only one other registered bidder at the IRS auction and the total damage ended up being $311,000 which was in Wendorf’s range and he’s pretty flippin’ stoked, “These seat options are not available from the Cowboys. I think it’s a great opportunity for me to add to my inventory,” he told the Dallas Morning News and saying, “In my opinion, these are the best seats in the stadium.”
The package includes seasons tickets for this year plus options to buy the same seats – located behind the Cowboys bench near the 50 yard-line – for the next 30 years, hence, you’ll never get them.
Since the starting bid was around $180k, Wendorf wasn’t too concerned about too much competition showing up to today’s auction but at least he wasn’t smug about it, “If fans want to judge the seat quality for themselves, ‘they can buy tickets from me,’ he said with a laugh before heading off to sign lengthy legal documents.”
At that time, we learned that the agents seized several items – recording equipment, jewelry, furniture, his platinum wall plaques – even Mr Buck’s PlayStation (he says it was his son’s but, come on).
We’re not too familiar with IRS protocols, so perhaps when someone’s house is raided, the standard operating procedure is to take literally everything. The furniture. The porno collection. Worthless movie posters that there are literally tens of thousands of copies of. It all goes.
Presumably, the agents could have sold the poster to a kid on the street for a few bucks so they could get coffee but it would still be only enough money for one or two coffees. Or maybe it was enough for one (one!) cover at the local strip joint for the post-raid celebration. Or maybe on of the guys/gals really, really, really wanted that poster. Who knows?
Motivation aside, it certainly serves as another fine example of IRS shrewdness when it comes to collection efforts.
Actually they ask you a lot questions but as FINS tells us today, there are far more interesting qualifications to join Doug Shulman’s brigade than, say, one of the Big 4.
For example, if you’re the ripe old age of 38 and you’ve never served in law enforcement, you’re out. Sorry but this is the Criminal Investigation Division and we don’t need your old college intramural energies acting up on raid where someone might get killed.
That being said, just because you happen to be in the “prime” of your life, that doesn’t mean you get a free pass. The Service does require that you be in “prime physical condition” and your slow, uncoordinated ass will be tested on it.
Here’s the lowdown:
If any of this is confusing (we know some of you haven’t exercised in you life) jump over the website where there are videos demonstrating the vertical jump, bench press, situps, The Illinois Agility Run, and simply running. Again, the Service appears to be under the impression that plenty of you only break a sweat when you eat, hence the videos. Feel free to apply but only after checking with your doctor.
Tomorrow morning at 9 am Dallas time, bring your biggest suitcase filled with consecutively numbered hundos so you can watch Romo disappoint the faithful for yet another season:
The Internal Revenue Service plans to auction the six-seat package Tuesday, with bidding starting at about $185,000.
It’s the first time in at least five years that a season ticket package for any professional sports team has been auctioned to settle a debt, said Clay Sanford, an IRS spokesman in Dallas.
Sanford said the agency’s privacy rules prevented him from identifying the ticket holder. But a document relating to the auction shows the federal government is owed $4.5 million.
Technically, the IRS is auctioning off two contracts offering licenses, or “options,” for six seats. Included in the package are 2010 season tickets for the six seats and parking for the 10 home games.
The licenses grant the holder the right to buy season tickets for a given seat for 30 years. Licenses for those seats sell for $50,000 each, said Cowboys spokesman Brett Daniels.
That would be $300,000 for the six licenses up for bid.
All of the seats are in section C110 between the 40 and 50 yard lines on the lower level, the first level up from the field. The auction includes parking for the 2010 season.
We should tell you that you’ll also have to pay an additional $70,000 “still due on the contracts and to cover transfer fees.”
The AICPA is following the ABA’s strategy of mass letter sending by urging its members to inundate the IRS with tearful pleas to reconsider the Service’s Tax Preparer Registration Proposal.
The issue is so serious that the Tax Vice President, Edward Karl, went on the Hill today to testify about the AICPA’s concerns, in what had to have been one raucous hearing:
The AICPA has serious concerns that the proposed IRS regulations are an overreach and would place immense burdens on CPA firms, particularly small- and medium-size firms. Further, the AICPA questions whether the IRS has adequately examined the costs that would be imposed on tax preparers and American taxpayers.
The IRS has proposed four broad new requirements for paid tax return preparers including: mandatory registration, application of enforceable ethical standards, competency testing and continuing education requirements. At [today’s] hearing, the IRS specifically requested comments about registration and the fees tax preparers will be charged for newly required personal taxpayer identification numbers, or PTINs.
While the AICPA has consistently supported the IRS’s efforts to increase tax compliance and elevate ethical conduct through the adoption of a registration process for paid tax return preparers, the AICPA does not believe other elements of the policy are fully justifiable or necessary, according to Karl.
The AICPA is urging all of its 360,000 members to contact the IRS about the proposed regulations to express opposition to elements of the plan.
Where’s a Liberian warlord when you actually need one?
NC owes the Treasury around $60k which is really NBD seeing how that’s probably what she spends on antique torture tools to use on her assistants. In a weekend.
Plus, her boyfriend is the so-called “Donald Trump of Moscow,” which could mean a lot of things but it for sure means that dude is rich.
This guy/gal is going to get a big slap on the back from Doug Shulman:
An Internal Revenue Service criminal investigations special agent shot and wounded one person during an apparent robbery attempt in San Francisco’s Bayview District overnight, police and an IRS spokeswoman said.
Our hero was apparently on duty at the time which, apparently, isn’t strange:
[IRS Spokeswoman Arlette Lee] said agents are on call 24 hours.
“It is not unusual for IRS agents to be out at different times of the morning or evening,” Lee said.
Lee said IRS special agents carry firearms but could not immediately confirm that the agent involved in the shooting had fired a service weapon.
According to Young’s rep, IRS agents rolled up to the platinum-selling rapper’s house in Nashville this morning to go on a repossession rampage over the alleged tax debt — seizing assets like recording equipment, jewelry, furniture, his platinum wall plaques … and even his kids’ PlayStation.
Allegedly YB owes $300k in back taxes which isn’t the largest sum but it’s sizable enough. When TMZ asked Mr Buck how he got himself into such a pickle he responded, “This IRS situation came about because I trusted accountants, lawyers, and managers to handle my business for me while I focused on making music. From now on, I am going to stay on top of my own business.”
Hopefully this doesn’t mean that the music doesn’t suffer like the business did. We can’t imagine such a huge blow to the culture.
Apparently there’s been a bit of unnecessary confusion out there about the deductibility of marijuana for medical purposes. The Wall St. Journal article that we linked to this morning discusses the problems employers are encountering wi e.g. can’t use HSA funds; they don’t care if you’ve got a card, if you test positive you’re fired).
But the question of deducting the cost of your White Widow et al. that you legally purchase in states like California and Colorado has been making the rounds. After a little discussion, it’s pretty clear that the IRS is not going allow you deduct your pot for tax purposes simply because it’s still illegal at the Federal level. Doctor’s note be damned.
The confusion arose due to the following letter that was sent to New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who had sent a letter to the IRS inquiring about a constituent using a “herb” to treat migraine headaches:
As with many facets of how to treat medical marijuana for tax and other purposes, it appears that those in charge are merely tiptoeing around the question. In the letter, the term “marijuana” is never used explicitly – the term used is “herb”. While it’s my understanding that the specifics of the case involved medical marijuana used for the treatment of migraines, that isn’t specifically stated in the sanitized version of the letter. No use of “marijuana”, just the term “herb.” That could be St. Johns Wort or milk thistle as far as the IRS is concerned.
Fortunately TaxProf Paul Caron clears up for us in a couple of updates from his latest post on this issue:
Update #2:Rev. Rul. 97-9, 1997-1 CB 77, specifically precludes a medical expense deduction for medical marijuana:
An amount paid to obtain a controlled substance (such as marijuana) for medical purposes, in violation of federal law, is not a deductible expense for medical care under § 213. This holding applies even if the state law requires a prescription of a physician to obtain and use the controlled substance and the taxpayer obtains a prescription.
So the IRS in Info. 2010-0080 either was (1) signalling a retreat from its position in Rev. Rul. 97-9 by not mentioning the federal legality of the substance; (2) implicitly referring only to legal herbs (and hence not covering marijuana).
Update #3: I am told by an enterprising reporter that the herb in question in Info. 2010-0080 is Petadolex, so it appears that interpretation #2 above controls and the conclusion in Rev. Rul. 97-9 denying a medical expense deduction for medicial marijuana still obtains.
So there you have it. Regardless if you have glaucoma, cancer, HIV, chronic pain, high anxiety or any ailment that marijuana can effectively alleviate, don’t bother trying to include it on Schedule A. We’d ask the IRS to implore a little common sense here but legally, as long as marijuana remains illegal at the federal level that’s not going to happen. And from a more practical standpoint, we’re still talking about the IRS.
SO desperate that in addition to appealing his conviction on any possible grounds, that he has hired private dicks (allegedly!) to following Ponzi Schemer du jour (allegedly!) Ken Starr’s wife, Diane Passage.
Actually they ask you a lot questions but as 
Where’s a Liberian warlord when you actually need one?
When Young Buck woke up yesterday morning, he probably wasn’t expecting IRS agents armed to the teeth barging in and taking everything in sight.