The agents said they had come to “help” me. But they never asked for the names of my tenants who had been approached by an IRS enforcement agent who wanted them to pay her/IRS their rent.
My tenants had described the IRS enforcement agent as acting as if she had a personal vendetta against me. But the treasury agents didn’t appear interested in that, what they did want to know, was if I had any weapons.
I said I didn’t have a gun. I made them tea.
The blue headings were not in my original letter. I’ve put them in to help distinguish different parts of my letter.
Copy —
Karen Kline
Santa Fe, NM 87505
2/2/96
Ralph Castillo, Inspector
Department of the Treasury, IRS
Internal Security
P.O. Box 25458
Phoenix, AZ 65002
Dear Mr. Castillo,
“Thank” comes from the Greek for “Think”
I’m not going to thank you for your visit only because I’m trying to get out of the habit of thanking people since the words and the process have come to be the opposite of the words and meaning that are their origin. The word “thank” comes From the Greek word, “think”. Thus originally it meant thinking about someone, holding them in your thoughts as a result of something they said or did.
Today we use the words at the beginning of letters, “Thank you for,” and with that dismiss whatever it was. I don’t want to dismiss things anymore that people did that are of value to me. In the case of your visit, it indicates that someone, Mr. Skadden, actually heard a letter that I wrote.
2.3 million Americans levied in a year
From the content of what you said, it sounds as if you can’t do anything to alter the situation now that it is so extremely bad, in terms of helping me, but perhaps, having seen this you will see that this is not a good thing to do to people. By that I mean that if IRS has levied me three times, and each of those times there was something deeply wrong in what they did and how they did it, then we have to consider that this is happening to a percentage of the 2.3 million people who are levied in a year. And there is mostly nothing the poor ones of us can do to protect ourselves.
The reason I am writing to you, rather than Mr. Roybal, is that you recognized immediately when I showed you the crimped pipe that it was not a good job, whereas Mr. Roybal’s face did not register this. Also, you seemed to be the person with the driving energy of the visit.
A chance to meet with IRS
Now, I’m glad you gave me your card with your address, since it occurred to me after you left that IRS would say they had offered me a chance to meet with them besides the chance described in the letter of which I gave you a copy. The other chance involved, however, the same man I was telling you about, the one who holds the mortgage on my six hundred square foot condo, who would take it in a moment if I fall the requisite amount behind to allow him to do that. I believe this to be the case since he asked me when he could take it. Also, I once did a real estate transaction with him and at closing he said he would not close unless there was a concession from . . . and so my commission was cut. I wasn’t actually at the closing, since I was in England at the time, I mentioned to you that my son is there, but the fact is that his tactic saved him money, even if it was rather tacky. (I wonder if that’s where the word “tacky” comes from . . . tactic. Nope, tactics comes from the Greek, tacky from “an inferior horse,” as per American Heritage Dictionary.)
Okay, so following the November 16, 1994 letter enclosed, Richardson’s office arranged with this man that he would meet with me and IRS. Now, the problem inherent in this is that at this time Richardson’s office and this man were negotiating a lease. The man was at that time their landlord. He had an interest in doing them a favor so as to keep them as a tenant, since he was also raising their rent and they were considering moving which later they did.
From my point of view, a meeting of this nature would put me in a very questionable situation, since from my previous meeting with IRS I knew I could not trust them or their word, from my previous dealings with this man, my “friend” I could not believe he would put my interest before his own, and from the letter written by Richardson’s office, they clearly had no understanding of the basic problems involved.
I mean, I had written to Richardson’s office after my meeting with Damian Ackerman–who had said people call him Dan, so that I sometimes refer to him as Dan Ackerman–saying that he had not kept his word, and Richardson’s office did not object to his behavior. By this time I had heard Richardson’s people say more than once, “You can’t change IRS, just pay them.” In view of that attitude, I could see they weren’t going to even attempt to help me. In fact, they appeared to be helping IRS.
Do You Want to Buy a President
Now, it is interesting that the evening of the day of your visit Frontline ran a program entitled Do You Want to Buy a President. It featured a lot of information on big political contributors, Archer Daniels Midland: a Mr. Andreas, though I am unsure of the spelling of his name, the Gallo wine people, Mr. Lintner, again I am unsure of the spelling, who has Chiquita bananas among other things.
In the case of Gallo, a large contribution went to Dole, and Dole wrote and saw passed a bit of tax code that provided for Gallo to get more money to Gallo heirs than would otherwise have been the case. I believe that particular contribution was for $50,000, but it may have been more. There were many instances of this kind of thing cited by the program, so that I was even more sure that my little yellow cards, “Whatever you do, don’t vote for Dote,” are worth distributing. And it also explains how there can be over 7,000,000 words in the tax code when the Bible only has 730,000 according to Steve Forbes. (I mentioned this to you.)
Do you see what I’m getting at? 1 don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to protect myself from IRS, but Mr. Gallo and others can pay $50,000 at a whack to protect themselves in very specific legislation to favor their interests.
IRS condones bad behavior
Which brings me to the problem of Rosemary Abascal and Betsy Donnelly and Jeanne Kearney.and Damian Akerman, versus IRS as a whole. While I object to the way these individual people treated me, I believe the problem was that IRS condones their behavior. Thus, they are not as much to blame as the people are who should have been directing them to behave in a good way as opposed to such a destructive way, people who should have been directing them to correct their errors rather than blaming the taxpayer.
When I say that, I specifically think about how when I sent in my 911 form, I sent a copy of it to Austin and later I sent a copy to IRS in Dallas, because I was trying to get it to someone impartial the way the form itself says it will go to someone impartial. But despite all my efforts, it did not go to someone impartial It went to someone who said, “Oh, I know all about this, and we are right. IRS is right. I’ve known that for a long time,” so to speak. I made up those words, but they reflect the spirit of what was actually said to me. I wrote down what was being said to me as it was being said, and I am enclosing a copy of that, which is the September 30, 1994 letter with notes in the margins.
You asked if I had weapons
Now, while I believe that you did indeed come to help me, I also cannot help but note that when it came to specific questions, Mr. Roybal asked me if I had any weapons, to which I replied no, that it was not my intention to harm anyone else, though it surprised me how many people suggested to me that I should get a gun, meaning I should kill the people who are hurting me before I kill myself. However, this is not what I think.
But not for names of witnesses to IRS Vendetta Behavior
At the same time, neither of you asked me for the names of the people who had told me the IRS agent behaved as if she had “a personal vendetta” against me. I would have thought you would have asked that question if you were interested in investigating the problem. You see, I know that one of the people is someone who called IRS and spoke with this woman. It was not a person who owed me money, meaning that therefore this is not a person whose name you have by virtue of the fact IRS was initiating contact.
Who initiated your visit?
And finally, the reason I was having a hard time comprehending who it was whom I had written to, who had initiated your visit, is that I was certain it must be someone within IRS, someone from the Inspector General’s office down, since I had written to Valerie Lau on October 13 and October 14.
IRS said there was no problem
For some reason, when I wrote those letters I had expected them to bring some sort of true look at the problem. But that had not happened. I had had a call from a young woman in Albuquerque who said, as IRS had always said, that they had looked into the problem and there was no problem and sorry for the inconvenience, if any. I had replied that what they had done to me was not an “inconvenience” and they owed me for what they had wrongly destroyed. She had sounded nervous after I said that and I remember thinking that she also sounded very young.
And, a Mr. Leaf in California had written to me saying that they would refer my problem to IRS in Washington. I wrote back to him saying I really objected to him sending my problem to IRS, who had been saying they were right for years, and that I also objected to him replying to me on an unfolded sheet of paper, that he mailed in a large brown envelope with 52 cents postage, almost double what would have been needed had he simply folded the sheet of paper. I said this upset me because when IRS took all of my money, they didn’t leave me any, not enough to buy an apple and here he was acting as if that amount of money was nothing.
I just reviewed that letter, and in fact what I did was send him a copy of a letter to the National Taxpayers Union in which I said that referring my problem back to IRS was like referring the people on the commuter train to Colin Ferguson, since each of them, Ferguson and IRS, in their own mind thought they were innocent.
IRS is completely dangerous
So now I figure that telling you that’s how I felt and what I thought, that IRS is that completely dangerous, you will no longer by sympathetic to me, if indeed you were. But here’s the thing, if I’d already tried really hard to get the system to have you, so to speak, take a look at this, and my efforts failed, then what hope is there?
I wanted to believe the system wasn’t all bad
I must emphasize to you that I wanted the system to have sent you, because I wanted to believe that the system wasn’t all bad. But it didn’t, IRS did not take that step. I see it this way, only when I went to an outside group, the American Tax Policy Institute did the proper action follow. And how many people of the 2.3 million who are levied in a year, are going to spend hours at the library looking for addresses of people to whom they can write? I would venture to guess that the less money these people have, who are levied, and the more children depending on them, the fewer of them will be able to spend that time.
Because I had decided to kill myself
Here’s another thing, if I hadn’t decided to kill myself, then when you had knocked on my door and were outside you might have seemed like a further threat. But once I plan to kill myself, you really can’t threaten me a whole lot. I’m saying that I already feel as if IRS is killing me, so what more can they do that’s worse? Kill me sooner? Cause me more of the pain they’ve already been causing me?
Once I talked with you for awhile I felt that perhaps you were here to help. But I have no idea what I think that means, since as I say, I think the system has gone pretty far wrong. What are you going to do about Valerie Lau ignoring, me?
This has to be dealt with
Send flowers to my funeral. Though in fact 1 believe that what will happen is what happened to my office manager, he was cremated at minimal cost and thrown to the wind. I don’t know whether you know it but the calcium in bones makes them a bit pebble-like, they stay underfoot. Meaning that even in the image, I will not disperse and be gone. This has to be dealt with, because it is wrong that the country has done this.
Sincerely,
Karen Kline
Copy to Mr. Skadden
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Karen Kline
Santa Fe, NM 87505
2/2/96 – Later
Ralph Castillo
Inspector
Department of the Treasury, IRS
Internal Security
P.O. Box 25458
Phoenix, AZ 85002
Dear Mr. Castillo,
I was just thinking about how you said there wasn’t much you could do, but that perhaps, you weren’t promising, but perhaps you could work something out so that I could have someone to talk to. And I realized that I should have told you that I was going to a therapist in 1994 during a period when I had money. When IRS was levying me and threatening to take my home and my property, I wanted her to write to IRS saying how distressed it was making me. She said she would. Then she called me and said, no, she wouldn’t because she was afraid IRS would come after her if she did.
What can I add.
Except, I think it’s a good example of why Steve Forbes can be running on exactly one issue, with no prior name recognition in terms of face and name, and be gaining in the poles.
I’m not blaming you for this. I’m just saying that it’s the case. I agree with Forbes and Bill Archer, that the tax code is beyond repair, adding
another million words isn’t going to help.
Sincerely,
Karen Kline
Karen Kline
Copy to Mr. Skadden