Tax Season Tribune

Sometimes criminals seem to get off way too easy. Take Mr. Christopher J. Smyth of Pineville, West Virgina. Mr. Smyth owned Stat EMS, an emergency medical service (EMS) business (aka an ambulance business). Mr. Smythe racked up over $4.6 million in trust fund penalties for pilfering income taxes withheld from his employees for over a decade.

And this wasn’t the first time! Mr. Smyth created Stat EMS after his previous EMS business went bankrupt for, you guessed it, unpaid employment tax liabilities.

This time around, Mr. Smyth received three years of prison time for corruption and forcible interference with administration of internal revenue laws and a super-duper cumbersome repayment plan:

• $25 to be paid per quarter during his three-year incarceration period; then
• Monthly payments of not less than 15% of his monthly gross earnings with a minimum of $100 per month.

Now, when Mr. Smyth was interviewed by an IRS revenue officer, he stated that he had no personal bank accounts and denied that he used anyone else’s. In reality, he made regular deposits into a relative’s bank account and tried denying that he had any involvement in a series of other businesses, despite having signature authority over their bank accounts.

Something tells me that Mr. Smyth is experienced at hiding his income and assets (at least on paper), so the chances of the federal government collecting more than the minimum $100 per month from him once his incarceration ends seems like a stretch. At that rate, in his lifetime, he’ll never repay even a couple of months’ worth of interest on $4.6 million.

I, for one, am not that kind. Mr. Smyth is the type of person who makes you want to bring back good old fashioned medieval English punishments. Maybe I’m mean and cruel, but that’s okay with me. Mark me down as one year older and one year more curmudgeonly.

I recently bought a volume of the works of Edgar Allan Poe during lunch, and I admit I wasted over an hour of work time that I should have spent reading OTA appeals, or pulling together podcast content, or writing articles to instead read favorites like “The Tell-Tale Heart” and, of course, “The Raven.”

But some good did come of it because I thought AI might do a good job of creating a spoof poem of “The Raven.” The results were pretty good, but you know the rule — don’t just rely on what AI pumps out — so I also tweaked it. I’m sure I committed various tense shifts, approximate rhymes, and scansion that leaves a lot to be desired, among other crimes of poetry. Hopefully, I won’t have to eat crow.

“The Haven”

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of offshore lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“‘Tis some auditor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December;
And each asset in my portfolio wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
Respite from my wealth-born sorrow—sorrow for my dwindling store—
For the rare and radiant fortune that the angels name “secure”—
Taxed here forevermore.

Then a whisper, softly creeping, as if some dark secret keeping,
Spoke of islands far and distant, spoke of shores with golden store.
“Take thy wealth across the water, hide it there from those who bother,
Let no tax man ever gather what is rightfully your lore.
In these havens, safe and hidden, you shall prosper evermore—
Shall be poor, ah, nevermore!”

Now my coffers, ever growing, with the wealth forever flowing
To accounts where none may follow, to that far and distant shore.
And my assets from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be taxed here—nevermore!