Albany, NY - Corrupted Tactics By Tax Official
Albany, NY - An official with the state Office of Tax Enforcement tried to force a Brooklyn auto mechanic from his garage so state investigators could use the space to conduct an undercover operation.
A State Inspector General's report said that Thomas Stanton, director of a division of the state Department of Taxation and Finance, and others made numerous threats in 2004 to prosecute the mechanic for tax law violations, even though they knew of no infractions at the time, when the mechanic asked Stanton how he could resolve any problem, he was told he should close his business and vacate the premises.
Stanton told investigators the tactic, known as a "squeeze," was commonplace and that he had operated that way for 26 years.
Tax department Deputy Commissioner Peter Farrell, Stanton's supervisor, later told investigators that Stanton had no authority to try to force a tenant out of business.
posted by VOS IZ NEIAS @ 5/31/2006 09:59:00 AM
3 Comments:
At 11:49 AM,
Anonymous said…
This is an outrage!!!!!!!
This is another example of government abuse. What will be done about this?
At 11:51 AM,
Anonymous said…
dos anybody know, which Brooklyn car mechanic?
At 10:43 PM,
Anonymous said…
Being a former employee of this agency there are times where you do have to "squeeze" a situation. However if evertything in the NY Post srticle is true, both of those officials may have a slight problem on their hands; not only by legal system but also by the court of public opinion. The one thing that people do not realize is that (in the case of this repair shop) the business has an obligation to report and pay tax. And from my experience then and now, people disregard this obligation and give the Tax Dept. a bad rap just because they are doing thir job of tax collection. So not taking anything away from these 2 gentlemen attempting to net a "big fish" by doing a little "squeezing", we all do the same thing in order to get what is ours; especially money.
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