Read Online Death and Taxes by Susan Dunlap - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Dunlap
Tags: Suspense
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doesn’t let go until they pay. He never initiates an audit that ends up with a No Change.” Connie eyed the remaining half of my donut.
Had it been a merely a glazed instead of a chocolate old-fashioned, I’d have relinquished it. I broke off a quarter and plopped it in my mouth. “What’s No Change mean?”
“Exactly what you think. When you get audited, either you pay, or the IRS admits you don’t owe more—No Change. They hate that; it wastes their time.”
“So he just kept digging till he found errors?”
Connie’s eyes opened a smidge wider, as if to say that things weren’t that simple. They never were with Pereira and finances. The stock-market pages were her Disneyland, bankers and brokers her Mickeys and Minnies. I remembered now that about twelve hours ago, before Drem’s death and our argument, I’d promised Howard I’d ask her about his charity deductions and Publication 526. That could wait. I leaned back in my chair and braced my feet against the back of Howard’s. If he’d been here, he’d have had his chair angled toward the door and his long legs stretched to the wall beside my desk. I pushed the thought of him out of my mind.
“Smith,” Pereira said, “there are different types of audits and auditors: office auditors, field agents, collection agents—”
“Wait! What’s an office auditor?”
Connie eyed the chocolate old-fashioned. I could divert her with my coffee, but I nixed that idea. Another, albeit lesser, donut I could get from the box, but machine coffee and Peet’s were not the same species of liquid. I handed her the donut.
She took a bite. “There are three categories of initial audits in the IRS. The easiest is when a form comes in the mail for you to send in some information. The assumption there is that you will admit your guilt and pay up. The second is the office audit. For that, you and your accountant show up, records in hand. Then you pay up. And the third is the field audit. They save this for businesses with records too cumbersome to carry into the office, or TPs with operations they want to eyeball. Then there are agents in collections. By rights, Drem should have been one of them, packing a rod and facing down the Mob. But maybe that was too dangerous for Drem. Anyway, he was a field agent.”
“So he was likely to have been out seeing someone, someone who may have profited by his not being around to continue the audit, the afternoon he died.”
Pereira nodded.
“We’ll need a list of his victims, or whatever IRS calls them.”
“Fat chance, Jill. You won’t get that without a warrant and a big fight, and even then …” She grinned.
So this was the coup. “So?”
“Well, Smith, seems Drem was the apple of his group manager’s eye. Always up on the Procs and TDs—”
“ What? ”
“Revenue Procedures and Treasury Decisions. Didn’t shoot the breeze or bitch about the irates.”
“‘Irates’?”
“The TPs who call with questions or complaints.”
I took a long swallow of coffee. It was lukewarm now, but still good.
“And then I heard that the group manager was sick last year, and Drem, not the senior agent by any means, took her place at the Fresno meetings, which is as close as you get to conventions in the world of IRS. It’s where they look over the TCMP figures and set the local DIFs.”
I didn’t even bother to ask. I’d decode those later.
Pereira plopped the last vestige of my donut into her mouth and smiled as she chewed. “So, Smith, it was an easy guess that our Phil would have a few enemies in the IRS office.”
I took a final drink of my coffee and handed Pereira the remains. “And you found one?”
She finished it in a swallow. “Better than that. Found and just interviewed. And guess what he told me?”
“At this hour Saturday morning, either everything or nothing.”
Connie shrugged. “My source, whose identity I swore on my mother’s grave I’d never reveal—”
“I’m sure your mother
Had it been a merely a glazed instead of a chocolate old-fashioned, I’d have relinquished it. I broke off a quarter and plopped it in my mouth. “What’s No Change mean?”
“Exactly what you think. When you get audited, either you pay, or the IRS admits you don’t owe more—No Change. They hate that; it wastes their time.”
“So he just kept digging till he found errors?”
Connie’s eyes opened a smidge wider, as if to say that things weren’t that simple. They never were with Pereira and finances. The stock-market pages were her Disneyland, bankers and brokers her Mickeys and Minnies. I remembered now that about twelve hours ago, before Drem’s death and our argument, I’d promised Howard I’d ask her about his charity deductions and Publication 526. That could wait. I leaned back in my chair and braced my feet against the back of Howard’s. If he’d been here, he’d have had his chair angled toward the door and his long legs stretched to the wall beside my desk. I pushed the thought of him out of my mind.
“Smith,” Pereira said, “there are different types of audits and auditors: office auditors, field agents, collection agents—”
“Wait! What’s an office auditor?”
Connie eyed the chocolate old-fashioned. I could divert her with my coffee, but I nixed that idea. Another, albeit lesser, donut I could get from the box, but machine coffee and Peet’s were not the same species of liquid. I handed her the donut.
She took a bite. “There are three categories of initial audits in the IRS. The easiest is when a form comes in the mail for you to send in some information. The assumption there is that you will admit your guilt and pay up. The second is the office audit. For that, you and your accountant show up, records in hand. Then you pay up. And the third is the field audit. They save this for businesses with records too cumbersome to carry into the office, or TPs with operations they want to eyeball. Then there are agents in collections. By rights, Drem should have been one of them, packing a rod and facing down the Mob. But maybe that was too dangerous for Drem. Anyway, he was a field agent.”
“So he was likely to have been out seeing someone, someone who may have profited by his not being around to continue the audit, the afternoon he died.”
Pereira nodded.
“We’ll need a list of his victims, or whatever IRS calls them.”
“Fat chance, Jill. You won’t get that without a warrant and a big fight, and even then …” She grinned.
So this was the coup. “So?”
“Well, Smith, seems Drem was the apple of his group manager’s eye. Always up on the Procs and TDs—”
“ What? ”
“Revenue Procedures and Treasury Decisions. Didn’t shoot the breeze or bitch about the irates.”
“‘Irates’?”
“The TPs who call with questions or complaints.”
I took a long swallow of coffee. It was lukewarm now, but still good.
“And then I heard that the group manager was sick last year, and Drem, not the senior agent by any means, took her place at the Fresno meetings, which is as close as you get to conventions in the world of IRS. It’s where they look over the TCMP figures and set the local DIFs.”
I didn’t even bother to ask. I’d decode those later.
Pereira plopped the last vestige of my donut into her mouth and smiled as she chewed. “So, Smith, it was an easy guess that our Phil would have a few enemies in the IRS office.”
I took a final drink of my coffee and handed Pereira the remains. “And you found one?”
She finished it in a swallow. “Better than that. Found and just interviewed. And guess what he told me?”
“At this hour Saturday morning, either everything or nothing.”
Connie shrugged. “My source, whose identity I swore on my mother’s grave I’d never reveal—”
“I’m sure your mother
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