I.R.S. — They Got What It Takes To Take What You’ve Got (spotted on a bumper sticker)
[It was 27 years ago this month when I began my journalism career as a newspaper reporter with the Salem Observer in Salem, NH. One of the major issues that I was soon confronted with would be that community’s approval of a wood-chipping business known as, Granite State Natural Products.
The two major principles representing GSNP through the various Salem board and committee process were a couple of local attorneys: Frank Hekemian, who was a truly brilliant silver-tongue orator as well as an excellent lawyer; and Bruce Barron, who was also a pretty sharp cookie but appeared to be the ‘silent partner’ between these two when it came to addressing town officials at the public board meetings.
I guess some of the major concerns brought forth by the abutters and neighbors of the then-proposed GSNP operation, at that time, included potential noise pollution and violating the local wetlands area. Earlier on this same blog, I stated the many, many crazy exploits of then-Salem selectman Joseph W. Gagnon, who was truly a local politician that never encountered a controversy he didn’t like. Although Gagnon was a staunch advocate against the approval of GSNP, the wood-chipping company never sued the Town of Salem for defamation of character or anything else — thank God for small miracles. But Attorneys Hekemian and Barron had all their ducks in order, so to speak, and GSNP would eventually get the town’s approval to operate its business about a year or so later.
As for Yours Truly, I moved on to a somewhat more lucrative line of work within about two years after I started at the Salem Observer. When I ran into a politically-entrenched local yokel in Salem several years later, I was rather shocked to learn how GSNP wound up. The operation itself went “belly-up” soon after it started, which didn’t surprise me too much because I never could comprehend how there was any potential “big money” surrounding wood chips.
So then, this same individual told me that Atty. Barron had committed suicide mainly due to the constant harassment the Internal Revenue Service had initiated on both him and his family when he tried to claim his financial losses from the demise of GSNP on his Federal tax return. Aside from generating a fair amount of ink from newspapers like, The Cape Cod Times (see below), Barron’s situation with the IRS also got nationwide exposure from at least one of the more popular TV news magazines, such as Dateline, 60 Minutes, or 20/20.
From what my friend explained to me, the actual harassment by the IRS towards the Barron family was a lot worse than what this article indicates – but even what’s stated here is bad enough.
Why is our country so zealous on collecting its “fair share of taxes” supposedly owed by its own hard-working citizens, YET we’re so hesitant to secure our borders and then proceed to deport “illegal immigrants” who choose to commit heinous crimes against our people with no concern for anyone other than themselves? Heck, it’s too bad that the U.S. government isn’t even half as passionate on bringing some of these reckless illegal immigrants to justice as it was with “requiring” Atty. Barron to pay his fair share of taxes. Sure sounds to me like our country’s priorities these days are a wee bit screwed up.]
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980505/NEWS01/305059522
Settlement gives woman peace after husband’s suicide
By
May 05, 1998
A Derry, N.H., woman who settled a $1 million lawsuit with the IRS this week in connection with her husband’s suicide two years ago in their Chatham vacation home says a huge burden has been lifted.
“It’s an enormous relief,” Shirley Barron said yesterday. “I’m free at last.”
The IRS agreed to excuse more than $400,000 in tax debt, release the lien on her Derry home, and pay her legal fees of $44,129, but admitted no wrong-doing. Mrs. Barron said the only thing the agency admitted during the lawsuit was that an agent had not followed proper procedures.
Mrs. Barron agreed to drop her $1 million lawsuit against the agency.
Bruce Barron, a 47-year-old Salem, N.H., lawyer, died of carbon monoxide poisoning after turning on his car in the closed garage of the couple’s home on Emery Lane in Chatham on Aug. 6, 1996. He had come to the Cape alone that day, and his body was discovered the next day when family members arrived for the weekend.
Barron had been struggling with the IRS for two years over back taxes and had just learned his bank was foreclosing on the Derry home because the IRS had placed a lien on it. At the time, the Barrons owed $330,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest that had mounted from an $80,000 loss in an investment in a recycling company in the 1980s.
Barron’s suicide note blamed the IRS and the bank. “The IRS and PBT (Pelham Bank Trust Co.) are bigger than me,” he wrote in his suicide note. “(The IRS) sits and does nothing and watches you die.”
Mrs. Barron said yesterday “I have no doubt” the IRS pressure and tactics led to her husband’s death.
The couple’s tax problems began five years ago when the IRS began trying to collect the back taxes on the lost $80,000 investment. Their accountant originally told them they could deduct the loss on their taxes, but the IRS notified them two years later they could not deduct it and would have to pay. The debt began mounting and had reached $350,000 at the time of his death, as a result of penalties and interest.
Mrs. Barron’s suit was one of the first to test the 1996 amendment to the Taxpayers Bill of Rights that allows taxpayers to seek up to $1 million damages if they can prove the agency “recklessly or intentionally” used unauthorized collection tactics.
In her suit, Mrs. Barron claimed the agency began forcing her husband’s law clients to pay the IRS instead of him, which humiliated him and harmed his business. She said he tried to negotiate a settlement with the agency when he could have cleared the debt by declaring bankruptcy.
One agent agreed to negotiate, but another agent delayed action, causing more debt to mount.
After Barron’s death, the IRS continued to pursue Mrs. Barron, seizing the Chatham home, her wages and retirement account, and placing liens on life insurance benefits from her husband. The agency lifted all the liens as part of the settlement.
The agency sold the Emery Lane home at auction last year for $219,000.
Mrs. Barron said the settlement by no means makes her a rich woman. She will continue to work two jobs as a librarian to make ends meet. And she will concentrate on sending her 18-year-old daughter to college next fall. “But at least it’s over.”
She said she has not been back to Chatham since her husband’s death. The memories of 15 years of coming to the Cape with him, as well as the way he died, still haunt her.
“It’s just too hard,” she said. “I miss it, I do. I loved Chatham and I loved Orleans. We planned on retiring there. Maybe someday I’ll be able to go back.”
She said since her situation started to get national attention, she has had calls from people all over the country who are having their own problems with the IRS, including many on Cape Cod.
“What happened to me could happen to anybody,” she said.
One Bad Decision Away From Homelessness 