John Rocker tells how insult written on large check to agency elicited audit
Death and taxes.
Two certainties in life.
Right?
A few years ago, the privilege of paying taxes earned me – much to the consternation of my accountant – the joy of an Internal Revenue Service audit.
Even before my baseball playing days ended, I got involved in real estate. After retiring from the game, the dabbling in real estate became a full-time profession.
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As a 1099 employee of my own company, my paychecks didn’t already have federal, state and Social Security taxes taken out, some of which would have been refunded to me after paying taxes if I were a W-2 employee.
With no interest, mind you.
After one particular fruitful year with my properties/developments, the displeasure of signing over a hefty amount of my earnings – based on a year of tough work, sacrifice and diligent future-time oriented investments – wasn’t exactly an idea I was happy with at the time.
Again, just imagine you were to pay all of your taxes at the same time, instead of having them pulled out of your monthly or bimonthly paychecks.
One big, fat, happy check, with a nice, fat whole number signed over to the IRS.
That wasn’t a fun day.
In the “for” line of the check, my anger at signing over a significant six figure amount to the IRS boiled over in the type of rage that once fueled my relief-pitching days for the Braves.
I wrote a choice, four-letter-word in the “for” line, followed by a much more pleasant “personal pronoun” (use your imagination).
The IRS didn’t take too kindly to the two-word statement – though they had no problem cashing the check.
I was audited.
When my accountant met with the IRS in a high-rise in Atlanta, a bureaucrat pushed the check across the desk and asked him, “Please ask your client not to write that on the ‘for’ line anymore.”
Moral of the story: In the “for” line of checks, don’t write a personal message to the IRS.
Perhaps the audit wouldn’t have occurred if I had refrained from writing a personal message on the check, but seeing the extraordinary dollar amount I owed the government for my hard work, sacrifice and overall risk that exists when one chooses to be an entrepreneur left me in a less-than-charitable mood.
Funny, the same message I put in the “for” line of my check to the IRS is the exact same message many conservative groups, nonprofits and tea party groups received from the same entity.
Scandals are rocking the Obama administration right now, but none cuts to the heart of corruption more than the IRS scandal – after all, it cuts directly into the pocketbooks of a lot of people.
Those organizations and people who want accountability in government and still believe the U.S. Constitution was written as the bedrock of our laws – and not a document to arbitrarily look upon from time to time to validate the latest goal of the left – are now targets of a vindictive Obama administration.
When the Executive Branch can use an existing department of the federal government to target political enemies, you know accountability in government is done.
Instead of having proper checks and balances, you simply have a rigged game of chess.
You have “checkmate.”
You have a situation where potentially the president of the United States himself had a hand in the targeting political enemies by the IRS. Jeffery Lord of The American Spectator reported:
“According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-tea party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30 p.m. that Wednesday noon time of March 31 [2010].
“In short: The very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-tea party labor union – the union for IRS employees – met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS ‘Determinations Unit Program agreed’ to open a ‘Sensitive Case report on the tea party cases,’ as stated by the [inspector general's] report.”
The targeting of political enemies, using the IRS and its ability to audit individuals and charitable organizations, is a manifestation of the two-word phrase I wrote on a check to the IRS, earning me an audit in the process.
Death and taxes.
Two certainties in life, right?
Living in the age of Obama, you should by now understand that the primary certainty is that those who stand in the way of his agenda are only targets to be neutralized.
If the IRS can’t handle it, then Eric Holder’s Department of Justice will be called upon to do the job.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Constitution all government employees are supposedly defending remains the primary causality.
