Archive for March 3rd, 2010

An interesting article on The Huffington Post website regarding possible legislation, in certain States, to prevent employers from checking an applicant’s credit history.  The article raises many good points.  One particular idea is that frequent credit inquiries from employers could trap someone in a never ending cycle of being passed over for a job and the accumulation of more debt.  Read the full article by following the link below.

State Lawmakers Look To Ban Companies From Using Credit History Against Applicants

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — It’s hard enough to find a job in this economy, and now some people are facing another hurdle: Potential employers are holding their credit histories against them.

Sixty percent of employers recently surveyed by the Society for Human Resources Management said they run credit checks on at least some job applicants, compared with 42 percent in a somewhat similar survey in 2006.

Employers say such checks give them valuable information about an applicant’s honesty and sense of responsibility. But lawmakers in at least 16 states from South Carolina to Oregon have proposed outlawing most credit checks, saying the practice traps people in debt because their past financial problems prevent them from finding work.

Prosecutor drops tax-evasion charges against Bound Brook restaurant owners | – NJ.com

BOUND BROOK — The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office today dismissed tax-evasion charges against a restaurant owner, his half-brother and his business after the auditor who checked the books testified that his figures were unreliable .

The state had accused Rafael Rosario, 48, Rafael Amaro, 57, of Edison and Café Imperial of failing to pay more than $95,000 in sales taxes between 2000 and 2004 . The allegations surfaced after Rosario was accused of conspiring with suspended Bound Brook Police Chief Kenneth Henderson to avoid a raid by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control in October 2004.

Testimony in the trial started last week before Superior Court Judge Robert Reed in Somerville and continued this morning with Rosario’s lawyer Steven Lieberman cross-examining the state’s first witness, Thomas Bair Jr., an auditor from the state Division of Taxation’s Office of Criminal Investigation.

Bair is the official who reviewed the books in November 2004. After 15 to 20 minutes of cross examination, “he just recognized his calculations were wrong, his numbers were wrong, his conclusions were wrong and he made a mistake,” Lieberman said .

That testimony led to a conference between the judge and the attorneys, First Assistant Prosecutor A. Peter DeMarco Jr. and Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Murphy and defense counsel Lieberman, and James Wronko and Robert Wilson, who represented Café Imperial and Amaro respectively.

After a break, DeMarco told the court that his obligation was to seek justice and based upon the testimony, he could not continue with the case, Wronko recounted. He moved to dismiss.

A California woman claiming to be an IRS agent may ultimately get what she was seeking: free room & board.  Sadly, she may be resting in a federal detention facility instead of a comfy hotel.

Novato hotel wants IRS imposter to pay $55,000 tab – San Jose Mercury News

NOVATO — A woman who pretended to be an IRS agent while living at a Novato hotel is now being sued for an unpaid tab of $55,000.

Inn Marin filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Sherry Lynn Vertoch, a former long-term guest at the Ignacio hotel. The lawsuit was filed in Marin Superior Court on Friday, the day after Vertoch pleaded guilty to impersonating a federal officer.

Vertoch, 64, faces up to three years in prison when she is sentenced April 20 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. She remains in federal custody.

Authorities said Vertoch often stayed at the hotel for short periods from 2002 to 2008, usually paying in cash. But then she embarked on a two-year occupancy without paying her bills, according to court documents.

Authorities said Vertoch repeatedly stalled payment by telling the hotel staff that she was an IRS agent working on an extended investigation. She allegedly promised she would forward the hotel invoices to her superiors at the IRS, when in fact she never worked for the tax agency.

When a taxpayer submits an Offer in Compromise, the taxpayer will also submit a Collection Information Statement, which is essentially a financial statement.  This Statement is signed under penalty of perjury.  Virginia Ferrari was sentenced this week for defrauding the IRS by lying on her Collection Information Statement.  As discussed previously, it’s never a good idea to lie to the IRS.

Rio Vista woman sentenced to prison for defrauding IRS – The Reporter

A Rio Vista woman was sentenced Tuesday in connection with defrauding the Internal Revenue Service.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton sentenced Virginia Ferrari, 52, to six months in prison followed by six months of home confinement while serving one year of supervised release, restitution to the IRS of $913,574.91, and a fine of $25,000 for subscribing to a false tax document. She pleaded guilty on Nov. 25, 2008.

Officials said Ferrari had submitted to the IRS an “offer in compromise,” to settle for $19,000 in debts owed to the IRS, which included $913,574.91 for a trust fund recovery penalty and $44,140 income liability, and interest and penalties. In her accompanying financial statement, signed under penalty of perjury, she omitted four parcels of real property and a bank account, which had been concealed in a revocable trust.

Karlton said he was troubled by the defendant’s continued pattern of behavior following her guilty plea of concealing assets that would otherwise be available to pay her debt to the IRS. Court records showed that Ferrari’s behavior involved lying to the probation officer by saying that her home had sold in foreclosure when, in fact, it sold for more than $2 million. The sentencing hearing had been delayed to allow the government to subpoena the records of the sale. She begins her sentence on April 5.