Written by Theodore M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee
Current Items:
1) Beat Washington
2) One Billion Mark
1) Rutgers Class of 1969. Actually, 1965 to 1969. Like many high school kids back then selecting college was not with the greatest of guidance. In my case, a cold beer on a Saturday afternoon got me to the Banks of the Old Raritan. A good friend of mine’s brother was a fraternity brother at Delta Sigma Phi, 40 Union St., New Brunswick, NJ. Phil asked me if I had any interest in going down to visit his brother. It was a beautiful fall-like day, as far as I can remember. We pulled up in front of what looked like a typical suburban two-story house with a wide porch out front. Lounging about were guys my age and a few somewhat older. From the hallway stepped the “Mule” Phil’s brother John. I hadn’t seen him in a number of years, but I could see where he got the nickname. He introduced us around to his brothers in the living room, TV on, couches covered with more smiling faces. And then he said the magic words: Would you like a beer? I looked at Phil, and Phil looked at me: beer in the afternoon on a college campus? We were led downstairs to a knotty pine-lined basement with a small bar strategically placed in the corner, hiding a keg of beer on ice. John stepped inside, gave the keg a few pumps, and voilà cold beer at the first fraternity house I had ever been in.
Now, to be honest, that wasn’t the first glass of brew I had ever entertained, but the setting was nearly perfect. By the second glass, I had made up my mind: I would become a Rutgers man. At that time, there were no women at Rutgers in New Brunswick. It was a men’s college. Douglass, the female version, fortunately, was about a mile or so away, and though women there had a reputation of being a whole lot smarter than we men here on the Rutgers college campus, they were welcomed with open arms. When the time came, I left my hometown willingly and took up residence in that “noisy college town.” As the years went by lots of glasses of beer were consumed at parties with great friends. I actually got to become vice president of that fraternity house a somewhat dubious accomplishment I still regard as a high honor. But the best part of those four years were the football games at the Rutgers Stadium. It was nothing but a grass field three quarters surrounded by concrete benches the tiny scoreboard hard to read. RU had publicized it as the place of the first collegiate game in 1896 I think. Going to the game was a dress-up affair, especially on Big Weekends like the Princeton match-up. Men in sports coats, women in dresses. That didn’t stop us from getting looped in the stands as liquor was permitted to be brought in.
Years later, the Stadium, like college fraternities themselves, would go dry. So it was with a sense of nostalgia that I got to go to the recent Rutgers-Washington football game at the new and amazing Rutgers football stadium. The game itself was sold out, but fortunately, my old fraternity brother Glen had season tickets and a wife unavailable for the 8 PM kickoff. Things have changed. Yes, it was a football game, but also a spectacular event, a pyrotechnic exhibition of modern technology at its best. Drones overhead syncopated by a computer program somewhere spelled out the word “Believe” as the band played the famous Journey song. A youthful explosion of energy, laughing, screaming, dancing, cheering, hi-fiving, fist-pumping, wild-eyed, and beer-guzzling. Fifty thousand plus fans all united in one dream… To beat Washington. The Rutgers marching band, with 250 members with lights on their helmets in the dark, created pictures at halftime of the map of New Jersey, the Turnpike Exit 9 sign, and Sandcastle, complete with beach umbrellas and beach balls. I wanted to reenroll and do my four years over again. But the real question comes in what way this story can be connected to federal tax law.
It’s the beat Washington thing. Taxpayers who have let tax debt to the IRS ruin their lives can play a game called “Offer in compromise.” Like the old TV show “Let’s Make a Deal,” the IRS is willing to compromise back tax liabilities under various kinds of circumstances. Now, the IRS recently has warned that there are offers in compromise “mills”, unscrupulous companies that promise instant results and produce most often nothing. But for the vast majority of taxpayers in need of relief the IRS website provides tools for them to see whether or not they would qualify. There is no need to suffer under the burden of tax debt. Under the right circumstances, they can, in fact… Beat Washington. By the way Rutgers beat Washington 21 to 18 in a thriller of a game. They are 4 and 0. Go RU!
2) Nothing like the excitement of the Rutgers Washington game is the recent announcement by IRS that they have hit the $1 billion mark for taxes recovered from wealthy nonfilers since the funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. The loot IRS says came from 1,600 otherwise deadbeat millionaires.
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