not the sharpest nail in the shed

[wserra]

one should not assume the forum regulars to be correct simply because I don't answer.

Actually, John, you're right. It's clearer that we're correct when you answer.

[Imalawman]

Be thnkful that John J. Bulten only posts here. Remember, somewhere in the world, a group of unlucky souls get to work with him. And I bet he is just as much of a gassy, blow-hard, know-it-all at work.

I could be wrong though....he could be worse.

You could be wrong....he might not be employed.

[webhick]

Webhick, I apologize.

Um, for what? You didn't do anything to offend me.

Oh...I get it, you're racking up credit for a future offense

[Famspear]

Oh, and as far as this Bulten comment:

As I previously stated, I do not respond here to every straw-man or false representation of my or Pete's positions, so one should not assume the forum regulars to be correct simply because I don't answer. I will comment, though, that Pete's old-news plea-bargain for failure to file is fully described at his site, and he has not advocated failing to file in the past 15 years.

This sounds pretty much like Pete Hendrickson apologist John Bulten saying, on behalf of Pete, "Hey I know I screwed up before, but I promise this time I've really, really got it right." Pete is again in a pile of tax trouble, and John Bulten is hoping that John won't end up in a similar mess.

And on this Bulten comment:

Famspear, did you intend to wrest this thread mercilessly off the topic of helping poor userfriendly, and drag us all into one of your pet arguments about "the gross amount of compensation for personal services"?

Well, as Bulten knows, "the gross amount of compensation for personal services" is not my "pet argument," it's a law that Bulten refuses to accept. This is not about my pet arguments, but about Bulten's pet arguments.

And John is not here to help you, userfriendly.

For example, regarding Bulten's statement:

Everyone knows that compensation is includable [sic] in calculating gross income.

Yes, almost everyone knows that -- but a few tax protesters like Bulten would like to convince gullible victims that it's not the law.

It is the law. And it applies to John Bulten and to me and generally to all U.S. citizens and U.S. residents, regardless of Bulten's nonsensical ramblings.

One of Bulten's tactics is to take a correct statement of law, then ostensibly claim that he "agrees" that the statement is correct, but then go on to explain what he believes the statement "really means" by "showing" gullible victims that the statement somehow means something else. When you're finished reading his material, you realize that he is being dishonest.

In this particular case, although Bulten will say that everyone knows that compensation is included in calculating gross income, once you get into the details you find that Bulten would argue (for example) that the gross amounts earned by and paid to a McDonald's Hamburger worker in, say, Tulsa, Oklahoma are not taxable to that worker for Federal income tax purposes.

Unfortunately, some people are probably falling for Mr. Bulten's nonsense in other places on the internet. His actions can have real effects on real people.

[John J. Bulten]

OK here I will take time to deny strawmen:

1. I do not interpret "includes" and "including" to be words of limitation.
2. The Federal income tax does apply to ordinary workers in Oklahoma, and Florida, and Alaska.
3. For a receipt of income, since it's income, you should pay the tax (it's only when you don't know whether it's income that you should consult the code, statutes, and regulations).
4. I am not trying to sell falsehoods.
5. I am not considering the Bulten Belief defense (the name coined by Famspear and used by him about 40 times on this forum), or counterfactual hypotheticals about it.

Mixed in with Famspear's misrepresentations are some accurate representations, which I wholeheartedly affirm and would challenge him to rebut if he disagrees. Namely, payments received for working should be compared against the fact tests for statutory "wages" given in sections 3121(a) and 3401(a) and dependent subsections. And, some payments for working are simply not statutory "wages" or "income". For instance, I mentioned payments for ag labor, which any tax beneficiary would agree is not "wages" and does not meet the statutory fact tests.

However, Famspear is a trained lawyer, so he is perfectly capable of calling these valid explications of tax law a "totally false idea" and, in his next post, creating and advocating some rationalization for his confusion. Oh, wait, he posted his next post while I was writing that last (unretouched) sentence, and sure enough, he rationalized that my correct statements of law are false because they mean something different than they say. Orwellian. (Famspear is also an amateur psychologist, as a simple search for threads initiated by him will reveal— and my experience with self-appointed amateur psychologists who rationalize and digress frequently would not be complimentary to him.) But for a lawyer to advise your not reading the law is neither surprising, nor without its benefits to the lawyer.

But Famspear's later post is mostly meritless, such as his rejecting the (strawman) position that "gross" amounts are not "taxable" amounts. Obviously 26 USC 61 and 63 clearly distinguish "gross income" from "taxable income". But even if Famspear corrected his hasty and rather deep-seated mischaracterizations, you can see why I still wouldn't be interested in rebutting every position that comes down his pike.

But to return: userfriendly (presumably) holds a W-2 listing amounts of "wages" as defined in subsections 3401(a) and 3121(a). How would userfriendly know the amounts of "wages" were correct, if not by use of the fact tests in those sections?

[Quixote]

Let's stop the hijack here, folks. I'll be posting Bulten's latest fantasy on a new thread so those who are interested can discuss it.

[webhick]

Sorry guys, my bad. I made the mistake of mentioning LH, John, and a reference to CtC. Won't happen again.

[Famspear]

webhick wrote:

Sorry guys, my bad. I made the mistake of mentioning LH, John, and a reference to CtC. Won't happen again.

mea culpa, mucho
--Famspear

[Nikki]

Sorry guys, my bad. I made the mistake of mentioning LH, John, and a reference to CtC. Won't happen again.

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse

[Joey Smith]

Userfriendly:

I sympathize with your situation. Your best bet is to find a LOCAL tax attorney or CPA who does "tax controversy" work and can prepare corrected returns and hand-deliver them to some IRS agent that they are friendly with and try to get the penalties abated or at least work out some long-term payment schedule that doesn't totally gut your lifestyle. Some tax attorneys and CPAs are really, really good that this and have worked out some remarkable deals.

As others have noted, you probably don't owe as much as you think you do.

Beware the John Bulten types who are still drinking the tax protestor koolaid and mistakenly believe that if they take you down with them that it will somehow help out their own hopeless situation. In John's case, for instance, his guru Pete Hendrickson has lost his case with a 0.00% chance of winning on appeal, but to listen to John he thinks he is still winning, just like Hitler thought that he had a chance of winning even as the Russians were approaching the gates of Berlin. Taking the advice of somebody who is delusional and detached from reality will only make your situation worse, and in fact you have taken the first step on the road-to-recovery by coming to the realization of what has happened to you.

Hopefully, some of the other former TPs who have worked themselves out of this mess like Tommygun will offer you their advice, which will be worth its weight in gold.

Best of luck to you, and welcome to the forum

[hartley]

Here's a little war story to illustrate what I mean by systemic incompetency at the Internal Revenue Service, and how easy it is to generate an erroneous refund.

Here's another one, from my time as an employee of the IRS, from this past filing season (by the way, I won my call center's "weirdest phone call of filing season" award for this call, and I may have told this story already):

A taxpayer sent in a paper 2006 Form 1040, properly filled out with all attached schedules, W-2s, and 1099s. Being a paper return, an employee at the processing center had to key the info into our computer system.

And the employee who did this input an incorrect amount of withholding. The amount entered matched neither the W-2s and 1099s nor the taxpayer's return.

Our computer system politely sent the taxpayer a letter, informing him we would not be able to direct deposit his refund, and he would receive a paper check instead. One week later, he receives a check...

...for slightly over one million dollars.

His actual refund was supposed to be just over a thousand.

This is when he called our toll-free lines in a panic, and I answered the phone. When I pulled up his records, and reviewed his return information with what he was telling me, it was obvious that there were 3 or 4 extra zeroes keyed into the withholding field when his return was entered.

At no point was there any intervention to stop a million dollar refund check from being sent, all that happened was the computer refused to send it via direct deposit as the taxpayer had requested. If he hadn't called us, it would have been *months* before this was caught.

[userfriendly]

thanks for the replies, I appreciate it....my first step is getting compliant and filing.

I'm still in the paralegal scam program as I haven't told them they are full of it, maybe I can work out a deal w/the IRS and be undercover for them, lol....

hey, gotta have a sense of humor when your in my situation...

thanks again and take care, I'm glad I found this board..

[Famspear]

Dear userfriendly--

Best of luck to you!

[Weathervane]

thanks for the replies, I appreciate it....my first step is getting compliant and filing.

I'm still in the paralegal scam program as I haven't told them they are full of it, maybe I can work out a deal w/the IRS and be undercover for them, lol....

hey, gotta have a sense of humor when your in my situation...

thanks again and take care, I'm glad I found this board..

Welcome to QL, user.

From my experience, all I can tell you is how lucky you are to be putting things right before CID gets involved.

All you really need to do at this point is get yourself in the office of the biggest accounting firm in your area...one that handles the heavy-hitters.

Have them prepare and file all your overdue returns yesterday, if not sooner. Send in as much $$ with the returns as possible.

I would strongly advise against consulting any of these "penny-on-the-dollar" legal firms. Best bet is to get yourself, your accountant, and the collection agent in the same room together and start figuring you out an installment agreement.

Start filling out form 433-a (433-b also if you own a business). This will give collections an idea of what kind of plan to set you up on.

It won't be comfortable, but like you said...keep your sense of humor, and you'll get through it.

Good luck. TG

[gottago]

Would 'A Guide for The Former "Tax Protester"' be better? Actually, it would be. Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity of my phrasing. (not being sarcastic here

You know, webhick, this really would be a good idea. It is very hard to know who you can trust in this business. I have read quite a few stories of people ripped off by some of the "offer mills" that advertise on TV. I know personally that we were and continue to be INUNDATED with mailings from "tax resolution firms" every time the IRS files a new NOFTL. In our case, we went with a firm who gave us a (free) phone consultation with the actual attorney and had specific understanding of "recovering" tax protestors. While our situation is still far from resolved after a year I remain hopeful that this will happen. One thing that occurred that slowed it down was originally filing "amended" returns (1040X) for the years in question since we originally filed "Shiffty" returns and the IRS then filed SFR's for us. You can not amend a "zero" return or a SFR, apparently.

One strange thing has recently happened and I am not sure how to interpret it. The OIC, submitted in September 2006 has been "pending" with them since October 2006. The original returns requested by them were filed a month ago, sent to a "special address" in Ogden per RO instructions. Earlier this week, RO told attorney she "might" put our account on "currently not collectible" status until the returns were "processed" even though the OIC is still pending. Seems a bit redundant since collection activities (except for filing NOFTL's) are "generally" suspended while OIC is pending. Also, does anyone know how much time they are allowed to "process" the returns and assess the tax? This seems to be the stumbling block right now.