It’s Rarely a Good Sign When a Tax Prep Business Closes Its Doors Three Days Prior to April 15th

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

A Sunset Hills accounting business closed abruptly last week just days before the tax deadline. Its owner was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing $19,869 from a client. Mary Beth Gable, 55, owner of MEG Accounting and Tax Services at 10345 Watson Rd., pleaded guilty to the theft charge in February. Gable, of the 12400 block of Chrisann Lane in Sunset Hills, was sentenced on March 29. Customers were asked to pick up their tax files from Gable's business by April 12. No one was in the office when a Patch editor stopped by on April 15, and the business phone number has since been disconnected. [Patch]

Image: Missouri Department of Corrections via Patch 

 

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Form Letters Generated by Pesky Technology Spurred by BS Deadlines Are to Blame for Herman Cain’s Late Taxes: Spokesman

Godfather of tax gimmicks Herman Cain has a bit of tax trouble in his past, reports the Daily Beast. In 2006, while Herm was undergoing treatment for cancer, taxes due to the state of Georgia were not paid in a timely fashion and this resulted in the GOP hopeful being served with a tax lien. It took a couple of years to sort everything which was probably longer than necessary since it sounds like extensions were filed on time but the campaign is using this non-issue to remind everyone that we need to fix this mess that is controlled by computers and deadlines and things that drive the system:

The Republican’s campaign late Tuesday confirmed the lien, portraying the unpaid taxes as an oversight while Cain was undergoing cancer treatment and the state’s lien as an excessive response that shows the need for tax reform.

“The experience serves as an example of how broken our federal and state bureaucracies are with respect to the collection of revenue,” Cain campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon told The Beast. “The entire process is driven by automated letters generated in response to deadlines.”

Right. Because allowing citizens to file taxes whenever it’s convenient, using hand-written letters delivered by carrier pigeon would be a much better way to administer our tax system.

Cain’s Tax Delinquency [TDB]

Joe Francis Plans to Argue That Anything Related to Topless Girls is Deductible

Joe-Francis.jpgSome might call Joe Francis a genius. Others may call him a pig. Regardless, the IRS is calling him a scofflaw tax evader. His defense strategy will entail an elaborate slideshow that will explain that Francis is the “business of sex” and that most of what he’s doing are business expenses.
Sex is a confusing business so Francis’s defense will help the jury understand:
Get informed, after the jump

• Mr. Francis is in the business of sex
• Mr. Francis IS Girls Gone Wild
• Girls Gone Wild is Successful

See? It’s not complicated.
The defense strategy will also include pictures of celebrity guests (with some misspelled names) that were at Francis’s beachside house in Mexico where he incurred “business expenses”. Francis will also present a slide that shows himself to be akin to Hugh Hefner and thus, proving that anything to naked girls should be allowed as a deductible expense.
Open and shut as far as we’re concerned.
Jennifer Aniston For The Defense? [The Smoking Gun via TaxProf Blog]

John Kerry May Be Having Buyer’s Remorse re: $7 Million Yacht

Because people keep asking about it.


If pesky Boston reporters weren’t enough, the Wall St. Journal’s report is taking this to new hyperbolic levels with the headline: “John Kerry – A One-Man ‘Benedict Arnold’ Corporation”:

[T]here’s a smell of hypocrisy. In addition to sailing around the tax issue, Mr. Kerry chose to build his boat in New Zealand at a time when Bay State boat builders are having trouble keeping their work force employed. “I’m confident that anything constructed in New Zealand could be constructed here in the state,” Gregory Egan, who owns the Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, told the Boston Herald. Others noted that the Isabel was specially designed to be piloted without a crew — letting Mr. Kerry scrimp on employment costs and payroll taxes.

Jesus. A rich senator, married to a ketchup heiress, buys an expensive boat, does some not-so-fancy tax avoidance and all of a sudden he’s equated to, arguably, the most notorious traitor in the history of the United States? Yeah, that’s pretty much the same thing.

John Kerry – A One-Man ‘Benedict Arnold’ Corporation [WSJ]
Sen. Kerry Sails Around the Tax Issue [TaxProf Blog]

Earlier: John Kerry Saves $500k in Taxes By Dropping Anchor in Rhode Island

UPDATE: JK’s spokeswoman has said he will pay the tax if Mass. determines that he owes it.