Confessions of a Tax Collector (30 page)

“Would you really take my house, Rick?”

“The Service would.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“Even if we did take it, the sale wouldn’t be final for six months. At any time you can get it back.”

“If I had the money.”

“If you had the money.”

“But if I had the money, you wouldn’t take my house.”

“I’m telling you what your options are. You and I both know this is bigger than just you and me. I represent the United States government, and you represent someone else, too.”

“Who?”

“Your children.”

She nodded. “That’s right. None of this is their fault. I screwed up bad. They shouldn’t have to pay for that.”

“It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be able to do this.”

“Do you really think so?”

“If I didn’t think so, I would have already seized the house.”

“Thank you, Rick. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. I remembered Toby telling Henry how taxpayers would thank him for stripping them of their possessions. She slowly straightened in her chair and brushed the hair from her forehead. She was going to do it. My mentioning the children had been the coup de grace. The maternal instinct is primal, like fear, lust, jealously, rage. Learn to exploit these and you can rule the world.

Are you in love?
she had asked. And I answered,
I’m engaged.
She lacked the subtly to understand what my answer meant. Mine was a perpetual betrothal, an eternal commitment to commit at some unspecified point in the future.

Pam and I met at dinnertime the following week. I was heading into town and she was heading out: Pam had recently taken a new job at a theme park in Orlando, a job that demanded she work most nights and weekends. She slid into the booth opposite me and said, “What the hell happened to your hair?”

“I got it cut today.”

“Why’s it so short?”

“I’m going for the G-man look.”

“Why’s it so shiny?”

“Sean put this stuff in it.”

“Who’s Sean?”

“My hair guy. You know Sean.”

“I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about.”

“I told him I wanted something different. He said short was better.”

“Guess if he said shave it off, you would have shaved it off.”

“Don’t start on me about hair, punk rocker.”

“Well, I don’t like it. And what’s it with the beard?”

“You don’t like it? I’ve gotten a lot of compliments.”

“Contacts, beard, new haircut. What’s going on here, Rick?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s someone else, isn’t it? You can tell me. It’s that little what’s-her-name from the goddamned office, the Infernal Revenue Service, Allison. Is it Allison?”

I laughed. “I’m not having an affair.”

“Then what are you having? You’re a little young for a midlife crisis.”

“Really, sometimes you just want a change. You get bored with yourself. Haven’t you ever gotten bored with yourself?”

“It’s pretentious,” she said. “I understand the contacts—you do look better without the glasses, but why did you change your eye color?”

“I wanted to look like Mel Gibson.”

“You don’t look like Mel Gibson.”

I was losing my patience. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to manipulate me.”

“Oh, save it, Rick. Telling someone how you feel isn’t manipulation. What is it with you, lately? Every time we have a disagreement, you accuse We of trying to manipulate you. Make your eyes purple, I don’t give a shit.”

She stood up.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m going.”

“Our food hasn’t come yet.”

“You eat mine. You need it more than me.”

“Pam, we’ve hardly seen each other in a month.”

“That isn’t my fault.”

“I’m not blaming you. I’m stating a fact.”

“Only you could be so goddamned moody and so goddamned detached at the same time.” She flopped back down and snapped her napkin. “I’m fat,” she said.

“You’re not fat,” I said wearily.

“I am fat. Don’t tell me I’m not fat. I know I’m fat and it’s insulting when you lie and say I’m not. I catch you looking at me. I see the disgust on your face. Maybe that’s why you’re doing this whole makeover thing with the beard and the hair and the eyes. You want someone else.”

“No.”

“Because I’m fat.”

“No. I don’t want someone else.”

“Then what do you want?”

Our food arrived. Neither of us touched it. I looked out the window to the highway outside.

“To feel more normal.”

“You got blue contacts to feel more normal?”

“This isn’t about the contacts. It’s about feeling I’m on the outside looking in. Like I’m sitting in the stands watching something I can’t participate in. Most people, you know, have benchmarks, you know, like their first kiss, their first job, the day they got married.”

“We’re not going there, Rick.”

“We don’t seem to be going anywhere.”

“I’ve had a wedding. Believe me, you’re not missing much.”

“My point is, I don’t want to miss anything. I only get one life.”

She said, “Now who’s manipulating?”

“Don’t knock manipulation. If it weren’t for manipulation we wouldn’t be here.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“If not for manipulation, neither one of us would have been born. What’s copulation but the culmination of one grand—or not so grand—manipulation? Everything is driven by it, everything that happens happens because of it, and everything that doesn’t happen happens in spite of it: economics, religion, politics, culture. We’re manipulated from the second we’re born to the moment we die, by our parents, schools, churches, newspapers, television, books, movies, magazines, radio…
everything
is manipulation, everything is propaganda, to pressure us, push our buttons, to leverage us into buying something, believing in something, loving something. The binding force of the human condition is manipulation.”

“You… are you okay, Rick? I mean it. Are you okay?”

“I’m off on a tangent.”

“You’re off on something.”

“Is it about the money? I’ve been at this job almost two years now, Pam. I make more than you do, not counting the annuity.”

“I can’t marry you, Rick.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I don’t even know you anymore.”

I didn’t argue with her. “Is that my fault?”

“Oh, now you’re going to put this back on me? I never told you to take this goddamned job. In fact, I begged you not to. And when you ignored me and took it anyway, I told you to quit. Why didn’t you? Why did you— why are you doing this?”

I decided to tell the truth. “Because I’m good at it.”

She laughed. “And Ted Bundy was good at picking up girls.”

I leaned in, speaking in a fierce whisper. “That’s fine, good for you. I’m sure it makes you feel better to equate what I do with serial killing. What’s so wrong with being proud of myself for once in my sorry little life? You don’t know what it’s like to fail at everything. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like a loser. Well, you know what, Pam? I’m not going to be what I was before I took this job. That person is dead, as dead as the man who collapsed in your kitchen, and if that’s who you’re in love with, then I guess we never will be married.”

She fled from the table. I did not chase her. I watched her jump into

her car and whip out of the parking space, almost ramming the parked car behind her. I lit a cigarette and thought of Newton’s first law of motion. Allison had told me repeatedly that nothing would change with Pam, the deal being too sweet: Pam got all the benefits of marriage without any of the responsibilities. At any time, she could walk and still keep the annuity. Meanwhile, I paid Pam rent for living in the house and gained nothing. When the relationship ended—not
if,
according to Allison, but
when
— Pam would have the house and all its contents, and I would be right back where I started five years ago. A car, some old books, and clothes. “Think about it,” she said. “What’s in it for her? But the bigger question, is what the hell is in it for
you?”

I had no answer to that question. Except it was unfinished business. I had grown accustomed to wrapping things up neatly.
Another quality closure.

I stabbed my cigarette into the ashtray. I felt ashamed, as if I had failed an important test. I silently told her I was sorry, but Culpepper’s face was in my mind’s eye. Somehow, I had failed him, too: I still wasn’t the revenue officer I could be. I still had not found the revenue officer inside. If I had, the paperwork to seize Laura Marsh’s house would be on Gina’s desk. If I had, the curb-layer would have been out of business months before my DIAL review. Intellectually, I had become a revenue officer. It was emotionally that I had failed to make progress. I had mastered the mechanics of the job, but not its soul.

Sitting in that restaurant, I was nearly overcome by a blinding, choking, impotent rage. The force of it startled and baffled me. I could see the curb-layer’s face before me, hear his whiney good-ol‘-boy accent,
Well, I guess you’re just gonna have to come on and git me, Mr. Yan-Say.
I imagined stabbing out his eyes with my steak knife. As I swung the knife, his face metamorphosed into the face of Laura Marsh. Then every taxpayer in my inventory. Then Gina. Then Allison. Then Pam.
We’re coming after these bastards dull as butter knives when we should glitter like daggers!
I was slicing off layers, peeling back the faces before me, to reach the center, the ultimate ground, the source of all my frustration and rage. At bottom, I expected to find the face of William Culpepper. But as my knife tore away his face, I caught a glimpse of someone else’s eyes, bright blue and glassy as fish eyes, fixed and staring. I had applied the principle of leverage to everyone in my

life with one exception, the only person whose will I had left inviolable. It was time to take the irrevocable step over the threshold, to enter the sanctum sanctorum of Byzantium. Pam assumed I had changed my appearance in response to love. But I did not love anyone; not even the wielder of the knife, butcher and victim, owner of the blue fish eyes that now went dark as the blade plunged home.

I was not in love, but it was time to fall in love. And, in Byzantium, there is only one sacrament where love might be found.

War.

The opening salvo arrived in the form of a letter, addressed to me, with copies to the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, the District Director, Bob Campbell, Gina, our local congressman, the two senators from the state of Florida, and the president of the United States. The letter was mailed certified, return receipt requested. It read:

The signatures had been notarized, above the words, “In Sui Juris.”

I carried the letter into the suite of offices occupied by the senior revenue officers. The only one in was Beth. She smiled pleasantly at me. Beth had always impressed me as unflappable and I was glad she was the one I found first.

“What is the Bivens Act?” I asked.

“Never heard of it,” she said.

I placed the letter on her desk. She read the first page and said, “Tell ‘em you’ll see their Bevins Act and raise them a Writ of Replevin.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re protestors.”

She held out the letter, but I didn’t take it.

“ITPs.
[35]
You studied it in Phase Training, didn’t you?”

“Can they really sue me for a million dollars?”

“Henry was sued once,” Beth answered. “By a protestor. Took him to small claims court. The moron—Henry, I mean—didn’t tell anyone. He hired a private attorney and went to court. The ITP was suing for recovery of a bank levy. He lost. Inspection investigated Henry for not telling anyone. If they do sue you, Rick, make sure you tell someone.”

“What do I do?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do I answer this letter? Do I have to give them all this personal information? What is a posse commitatus?”

Beth laughed. She waved me toward a free chair.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess the doctor is in. Tell me about the case.”

He was a dentist. On my field call, he explained he had never had tax troubles in the past, but he was confident he could work his way out of the mess. He took full responsibility for the mess. He owed employment as well as personal taxes. His wife worked in the office with him. They were both in their mid-sixties. He reminded me of my grandfather. She offered me fresh oatmeal cookies. The place was run-down; he offered low-cost dentures to retirees on fixed incomes and Medicare. He owned a big X-ray machine and I conducted the interview in his “lab,” where he made the molds for the dentures—surrounded by set upon set of teeth, on table-tops, on chairs, lining bookshelves, everywhere I looked, toothy wax grins. Both had been gracious, apologetic, even abashed at running afoul of the IRS. I had set a deadline and hand-delivered the final notice, giving them thirty days to borrow on the dental equipment to full-pay me.

“And instead of full-pay, they send this,” she said, indicating the letter. “Well, they’re obviously not hardcore. It may still be early enough to knock some sense into them.” She explained that someone who found our tax lien recorded at the courthouse probably contacted them. This person or organization sold them an “untaxing” package of which this letter was a part. They probably assured my taxpayers this letter would remove them from the tax system and wipe out any existing debt they owed to the government.

“The funny part is, the people who sold this garbage to them are probably in full compliance.”

“It’s a scam?”

“No, Rick, it’s for real. The Social Security system is completely voluntary, the Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified, and the IRS is a private business incorporated in Delaware.”

“I don’t remember the letter saying that. About the IRS being a corporation.”

“I didn’t read the whole thing. That’s one of the arguments they use.”

“So, I don’t have to answer this?”

“Sure, you’re going to answer it. How much time is left on the final notice?”

“About ten days.”

“You have a levy source?”

“Bank account.”

She shook her head. “I guarantee you that account is closed or now under a different name. What about his MPN?”

I shook my head, mystified.

“Medicare Provider Number. All Medicare doctors have one, and we need one to levy the Medicare billings. That’s okay. With protestors you want maximum impact anyway.”

“Maximum impact?”

“Write them a letter, reminding them of the deadline, and give them a date you’ll be out there. Don’t call them. At best you’ll end up in a pointless argument. At worst, they’ll record you, edit the tape, and the next thing you know, you’ll be on the six o’clock news saying, ‘I’m gonna nail your ass to the wall!’”

“Wait a minute. I’m going out there?”

“You’re going to seize them.”

“And the warning about coming onto their property again?”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll assist, if you want.”

The person I was thinking of was the massive Toby Peterson. But Beth had the experience and expertise to handle anything these protestors might throw at us. In the end, I decided to opt for brains over brawn.

“You sure we can’t be sued?”

“Of course we can. It happens all the time. But the law protects us and the Service will defend us, as long as we were acting within the scope of our official duties. Don’t look so worried, Rick. You’re lucky. Protestor cases are fun. A lot more fun than the usual shit we deal with.”

She told the story of a protestor who chased her around his kitchen table three times before she bolted for the door, remembered she still had a summons in her hand, then ran back to the table and slapped it down before racing from the house.

“There was a revenue officer killed by a protestor,” I said, remembering a story from Basic Training.

Beth nodded. “Michael Dillon, the only revenue officer ever killed in the line of duty. The highest award you can get is named after him.”

“I just hope it’s never renamed the Dillon-Yancey Award.”

She laughed. “He sounds like a cream puff, and remember, they’ve just become protestors. That’s the point where they’re easiest to turn. They haven’t invested thousands of dollars in the scam; they don’t have their life savings riding on it. The worst protestors I ever worked was this group of old men at a nursing home. Now, those bastards were hardcore. It was all just a game to them. More exciting than
The Price Is Right
and Wednesday-night bingo and they were so goddamned old, what did they have to lose? It made them feel powerful, battling Uncle Sam. What a nightmare. They buried me in paper and frivolous lawsuits and harassed me for weeks.”

“How did they harass you?”

“Back then I was listed in the phone book. They’d call two, three o’clock in the morning. They wouldn’t say anything, just held the phone long enough to make sure I was completely awake. They sent pizza to my house. They subscribed me to
Hustler.
They filed liens against me. That one really got me mad, because I was trying to buy a house at the time and it really screwed up my credit, even though the Service filed suit and had the lien expunged. They published ads in the paper. They picketed the office. You name it.”

“How did it finally end?”

“The leader of the group died.”

“Did we ever collect anything?”

“Not a penny.”

“So what was the point?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What did we get out of it? Why even try to collect from a bunch of crazy old men?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Rick. That’s a question for Billy. I’m just a grunt. I do what they tell me. In seventeen years, I don’t think I’ve ever asked why we were doing something. I just did it.”

· · ·

Gina summoned Beth and me to her office for a briefing on the case. Protestor cases were considered “high-profile” and could generate coverage in the local papers. More important, for Gina’s sake, it had the potential to raise her group’s profile in the branch and in the district. Rumors were flying that Byron White was working to fire Gina. When word of this reached her, she allegedly said, “If Byron White wants my job, he can come down here and get it.” It is nearly impossible to fire someone within the Service, except in cases of gross negligence or criminal conduct, but even those cases are difficult to prosecute. Managers were more vulnerable, however, because they did not have the protection of the union. Usually, managers who had fallen out of favor were not fired, but demoted to the field—“busted down,” in the lexicon of the Service. Gina did not want to be busted down.

“He owns the real estate,” she said. “Why aren’t we seizing that too?”

“No equity,” I answered.

She looked at Beth.

“Can we make some?”

“It would be a stretch.”

“Without the real property, you’ll need consent,” Gina said. If we didn’t seize the building, we couldn’t take control of the assets inside it without the taxpayer’s written permission. The odds were long indeed that a protestor would voluntarily sign a consent-to-enter.

“There’s always public access,” Beth said.

“What, the waiting-room chairs and old magazines? Let’s get real. Why don’t we just go ahead and get the writ?”
[36]

“Counsel
[37]
won’t go forward until consent is denied,” Beth answered. This was a requirement of the manual.

“They may make an exception with protestors.”

“They never deviate with protestors, Gina,” Beth said. The two did not care for each another. Beth thought Gina was brilliant, but lazy and arrogant. Gina thought Beth wanted her job. They were both right.

“So you drive out there and when he denies consent, you turn around and drive back, forcing you to make a second field call once you’ve got the writ. That doubles the risk, Beth.”

Beth pointed out we were not dealing with hardcore protestors. Just our showing up with the locks and chains might turn them. It was conceivable we might not even have to seize.

Gina cut her off. “No, we are going to seize. We are going to send a message.” She probably meant a message to the “protestor community,” as it was called, but she could also have meant a message to Bob Campbell and Byron White.

She continued, “Speaking of risk, let’s talk about escort.”

“We don’t think it’s necessary,” Beth said. “The taxpayer is in his sixties.”

“If he can pull teeth he can pull a trigger,” Gina said.

“And, I was going to say, he hasn’t made any overt threats.”

Gina turned to me. “Did you call CI?” The Criminal Investigation division was charged with providing armed escorts for revenue officers in risky seizures.