Confessions of a Tax Collector (34 page)

truck into the far corner of the lot, leaned his arm out the window, and gave us the thumbs-up. I pulled a warning sticker from the case file and Cindy said, “What are you doing?”

“I’m stickering the car.”

“You can’t sticker the car yet, Rick.”

“Watch me.”

“You haven’t given the taxpayer the levy.”

“Don’t pester me with details, Cindy.”

“It isn’t a detail, Rick, it’s the law.”

“It isn’t a law, Cindy. It’s a procedure. There’s a difference.”

I placed the sticker on the driver’s side window; the taxpayer had been kind enough to leave it rolled up for me.

“Rick,” she said. “You’re putting a warning sticker on an asset that isn’t seized yet.”

“Look, Cindy, see that big glass facade over there? That’s his office. How far is that? Fifty feet, a hundred? How fast do you think he can run? Or send somebody else out here to rescue the thing once I hand him the B?”

“Stickering it won’t stop a rescue, Rick.”

I ignored her and headed for the building. She trotted to keep up.

“I don’t feel right about this. You’ve never had contact with him. You don’t know what he’s like, how he’s gonna react.”

“I have to take that chance,” I said. “I didn’t have time to write a fucking three-page memo to pass through Gina up to Howard, then back down to me.”

We were at the door. I placed my hand on the metal bar across the front.

“Where’s your commission?”

“Right here.”

“Cindy, no offense, but let me do the talking. They only understand one thing.”

“And what would that be?”

“The Fourth Protocol.”

“What the hell is the Fourth Protocol?”

I went inside.

· · ·

There was a small office area and a half-wall partition near the back. The two desks up front were empty. I rang the little metal bell sitting on the partition. The door in the rear wall opened and a middle-aged woman poked her head out.

“Hi!” she called.

“Hi!” I called back. “We’re looking for Mr.—”

“Just a sec. Can I tell him who’s here?”

“Rick Yancey.” Cindy raised her commission; I placed a hand on her forearm and forced it down. “And Mrs. Sandifer.”

“Okay. Have a seat and he’ll be right out.”

She closed the door behind her. I turned back and looked into the parking lot. If he caught a whiff of us, he might sneak out the back of the building and make for the car.

“When he comes out,” I told Cindy, “turn around and keep an eye on the parking lot.”

“Why?”

The inner door opened again and he came out, followed by the woman. Her hair was in a bun, a few loose strands falling over her high forehead. She was probably in her forties, the right age, and she hung close to him; the body language was right, too. The wife. He was wearing his salesman’s smile and approached the partition with the glad hand extended. Auto, home, health, whatever your insurance needs, you are in good hands with me. He had no frigging clue.

I held up my commission. He stopped in his tracks, hand still toward me, smile frozen.

“My name is Rick Yancey. This is Mrs. Sandifer. I have something for you.”

I laid the levy form facedown on the partition. His hand dropped on top of it. She started to say something, and he said, “Carol!” and she shut her mouth.

“We’re seizing the Corvette. You need to read that paragraph in the middle of the form.”

“I don’t owe this.”

“This is Publication One. It explains your rights. Read it, and if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

“Carol,” he said. “Call the police.”

I said to Cindy, “Told you I didn’t need to call them.”

I turned my back on him and walked to the glass door. I leaned out and gave Andy the thumbs-up. The gears of the tow truck screamed. Carol had not moved to call the police.

“We’re taking the car,” I said. “We’re going to have another form for you when we’re done. Please don’t leave.”

“I’m calling my attorney.”

“Good idea. Probably something you should have done a long time ago,” I said. “Mrs. Sandifer.”

I held the door for her and we walked across the parking lot. The car glistened in the late afternoon sunlight. Its chrome shone like diamonds.

“Rick, lemme tell you,” Andy said as he lowered the truck bed. “I’ve been hauling for you guys for ten years. Busted up old clunkers, broken-down rusting hunks of sheet metal, bald tires and bad transmissions and pieces of shit that shouldn’t even be on the road, but this is the finest thing on four wheels you’ve ever yanked. Congratulations.”

The taxpayer banged out the door and sprinted across the parking lot. Andy watched him, a bemused expression on his face. “What a dumb-ass,” he said. “You know, it just blows me away, how these people think they can get away with it.” Cindy muttered something under her breath.

“Hold on! Hold it right there!” the taxpayer cried. He arrived out of breath. He bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His shoes were scuffed. There was a thin line of dirt beneath each fingernail. Desperation consumes us by degrees, taking small bites until there is nothing, no joy, no hope, no love, only the desperation, ravenously chewing.

“This car is not mine!”

“That’s your phone number on the for sale sign,” I pointed out.

“I mean, there’s a lien on it. I owe more than it’s worth.”

“Not according to my report.”

“Well, your report is wrong. Hey!”

Andy had drawn the taxpayer’s attention by crawling under the car to

hook up the chain. He was ignoring our conversation. I had given him the signal and he would not back off unless I told him to.

“He’s gonna scratch it!” He pointed a finger at my nose. “You put so much as a dimple in this car and I’m suing your ass for damages.”

“I would think you of all people would be fully insured.” Beneath the car, Andy guffawed. Cindy frowned. She held a clipboard with the Notice of Seizure attached and was writing a description of the car, including the VIN,
[44]
the odometer reading, the make and model, color, accessories.

“I’m getting this car back,” he said. “I’m getting it back and it had better be in the same shape you took it or by God you’re gonna hear about it. I can already see where you’ve scratched it. I can see it right there, right there on the right bumper. That scratch wasn’t there before. Jesus Christ! You’re tearing apart my car!”

He turned on his heel and sprinted back to the building. Andy rose and wiped his hands on his jeans. His drivers always wore gloves to hook up a car. Not Andy.

“He’s going for the gun,” Andy said.

“Probably just his copy of the Code.”

“I never should have come here with you,” Cindy told me. We ignored her.

“If it’s a gun,” Andy said, “you’re my human shield.”

The glass door flew open and my taxpayer trotted back, carrying a legal pad.

“Oh, God,” Andy whispered. “It’s worse than a gun.”

“I’m going to write down every ding, every scratch, every chip, and you’re going to initial next to each one and then you’re gonna sign that that’s all there is.”

“I’m not signing anything,” I said.

“I’ll sign it,” Andy said.

“You’re not signing anything,” the taxpayer snapped at him.

“Mrs. Sandifer is preparing the Notice of Seizure,” I said. “We’ve got plenty of space on it to—”

“We can always attach yours,” Cindy offered. The good cop. “Hows that?”

“As long as it’s signed.”

“The notice will be signed,” she said.

“Fine. That’s fine.”

They walked around the car. From time to time he dropped to his knees with a little cry and pointed at something in the finish. Cindy would go down beside him and squint, shaking her head, and he would run one of those dirty fingernails along the shimmering red paint. I lit a cigarette and stood next to Andy. It was getting late. Andy told me he was hungry. After they had made a third circuit around the car, I decided to put an end to it.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re loading her up now. Step away from the car, Mr.—”

He had filled one page of the legal-sized paper with notes. He tore off the page and handed it to Cindy. Andy threw the lever and the car jerked onto the bed of the truck. The taxpayer gave a small cry and turned away. He folded his hands across his chest and watched the thickening commuter traffic crawling along the highway. He worked the muscles in his jaw. He would not watch the car as it slowly ascended the bed, or when the bed lowered, or when Andy hopped on to secure the car for the drive back to the towing company. I signed the Notice of Seizure and Cindy signed below me.

“If you want the car back,” I said as I handed him his copy, “we’ll need the full amount that’s listed on this form.”

He took the form, crossed his arms again, and turned away.

“Do you have any questions before we go?”

He turned and spat in my face.

I followed Andy to the lot. Andy’s bill would run about a hundred bucks for the tow and $8 per day for the storage. His bill would be added to the taxpayer’s; the IRS never paid seizure expenses out of its own pocket. I had thought to grab the office Polaroid before I left; I wanted pictures to print on the Notice of Sale. I worked on the ad copy as I drove.
This is your chance to own a classic!
Cindy wasn’t talking to me. Andy pulled around to his back lot. I parked and ran over to the truck before he could get out.

“Don’t drop it outside,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t you have a place you can put it where it won’t get wet?”

“I was going to put the top up.”

“The rain will dot it.”

“You serious?” He rubbed his chin slowly. “Okay, I guess I could put it in the bay. But that’ll cost you an extra five bucks a day.”

“That’s fine. Put it in the bay.”

After he dropped the car, I took pictures, chortling, climbing on top of mounds of old tires to get a better angle, tripping and almost falling on a pneumatic hose someone had left across the concrete floor. Andy leaned against the wall and watched me, laughing. Cindy sat in my car, waiting.

On Monday they were sitting in the interview booth. Carol seemed relieved. She smiled often and kept patting his hand. He refused to look me in the eye. He handed me a cashier’s check for the full amount due on the levy as well as the tax returns they had not filed, with another check for the total due on those. I informed him he would receive a bill for the penalty and interest he would owe on the delinquent returns. He was beaten. I had won a total victory. Still, I felt dissatisfied; I didn’t want to lose that car.

“You took his baby, you know,” she said.

“I know.”

I could not expect all protestor cases to be resolved as easily. The vast majority of ITPs are middle- to lower-class tradesmen with little or no college education. Many are retirees exercising their constitutional right to be royal pains in the ass. Only a few are hardcore, paramilitary, separatist types bent on the destruction of the government. Like the insurance salesman and the dentist, most protestors are merely gullible saps who have fallen on hard times and are conned by unscrupulous promoters into parting with money they don’t have for a “product” that doesn’t work. Consequently, when the case came to me, there were few assets to seize and what I could seize had minimal value. The goal, however, was never full payment of the tax. The goal was compliance. The goal was changing a protestor’s heart and mind. Like the early missionaries plunging into the darkest corners of Africa, I was charged not so much with collection as with conversion. It was not enough for them to obey Big Brother. They must love him.

· · ·

I found the ad in the classified section of the Sunday newspaper. In two weeks, a “convention” of “freedom-loving Americans” would meet at the Lakeside Civic Center for a day of rallies, speeches, and dissemination of “patriotic” literature. The event was sponsored by something called The Pilot Connection, a national organization based in California and a known protestor group. “Learn your rights! Discover what the IRS doesn’t want you to know!” There was no admission charge, but donations were welcome and appreciated.

I showed the ad to Gina.

“So what?” Dark circles ringed her eyes. Rumors were flying that blood was in the water and Bryon White was circling for the kill. On those days when she came to the office, Gina huddled for hours with her secretary, Bonny. Some days Bonny would emerge in tears, but she never told us what was said behind the closed door. Whatever Gina was plotting, Bonny would not divulge. She was the keeper of her boss’s secrets.

“I want to go.”

“For what purpose?”

“The first rule of war is to know your—”

“Oh, cease and desist with that nonsense, Rick. You’re trying to wear Culpepper’s clothes and it’s an ill fit. You want me to authorize you to rub elbows with these nuts at the government’s expense? What’s your plan, anyway? Are you going to set up a booth, participate in a debate, hand out tracts like a Jehovah’s Witness?”

“I was thinking incognito.”

She laughed harshly. She reminded me of one of the witches from
Macbeth.
“Oh, a covert op. Let me guess, you’re going to write down tag numbers and take lots of clandestine shots.”

“Getting some tag numbers did occur to me. But I was thinking I might get some leads on any new schemes they may be promoting.”

“You’ve been working protestors for a couple of months now—what if you’re recognized by one of your ‘clients’? No,
recognized
isn’t the term. Made.‘ What if somebody ’makes’ you? Are you going to wear a disguise? I have an old pair of Groucho glasses, if you want to borrow them.”

“I guess you’re not going to authorize this.”

“You guessed right. We don’t do undercover work. Write a memo to Howard in CI.”

“He never responds to my memos. I think he’s filing them in the round filing cabinet.”
[45]

“You know why he doesn’t respond, Rick? He doesn’t respond because the IRS has the highest rate of compliance in the entire world, higher even than those countries that throw their deadbeats into prison. Ninety percent of those required to pay taxes do pay their taxes. Protestors, in particular, the bottom-feeders you’re chasing, make up only a tiny fraction of the remaining ten percent who don’t.”