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I.R.S. Delays Action On Katrina Victims Until After Nov. 7th ElectionBy Cliff MontgomeryIf you think the Bush Administration thinks little of those who were too poor to leave New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina, you’d be wrong.This administration thinks about these unfortunates quite a bit–at least when it comes to collecting their back taxes.According to the New York Times, Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) Commissioner Mark Everson has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7th elections and the holiday season, admitting he did so in part to avoid negative publicity.The commissioner, who has close ties to the Bush White House, claimed in a Times interview that postponing collections until after the midterm elections, along with postponing notices to people who failed to file tax returns, was a routine effort to avoid casting the I.R.S. in a bad light.“We are very sensitive to political perceptions,” Everson said on Oct. 25th, clearly insensitive to how such a blatant political move may appear to most Americans.The tax agency has broad discretion to change filing deadlines in the case of disasters, and has traditionally eased off tax collections before the holidays.But Alex P. Trostorff, a tax partner at the New Orleans law firm Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrère & Denègre, said that despite the filing extension offered by the I.R.S. shortly after Katrina, until recently the agency continued to send overdue notices to many people in New Orleans.“A lot of people are upset,” Trostorff told the Times.Everson issued the delay order in an Oct. 10th conference call with some of the career civil servants working on tax collection in the very areas which were hit hardest by the 2005 hurricane.“We just spoke with commissioner on the enforcement issue in the gulf,” wrote Beth Tucker, the I.R.S. executive in charge of dealing with Hurricane Katrina victims, in an e-mail message to her team which was obtained by the Times.“He prefers that we do not resume any enforcement actions until after Dec. 31 due to the upcoming elections, holiday season, etc.” You can’t get any more clear than that.Former I.R.S. commissioners, who served under presidents of both parties, said that a ‘desist collection’ order issued because of an upcoming election was both wrong and indefensible.Former Commissioner Jerome Kurtz, who served under President Carter, had a simple reply when asked point-blank by Times reporters if he would have played politics with the pocketbooks of hurricane victims.“Never, never, never,” was his direct response, according to the Times. “Oh my God, ” Kurtz added, “that is unthinkable.”Donald C. Alexander, who was I.R.S. commissioner under Presidents Carter, Nixon and Ford, said he would never have even thought about delaying collections because of an election, but added that he thought Everson “was otherwise doing an excellent job,” the Times report said.Here’s the issue in a nutshell: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina–when hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes, tax records and incomes–the I.R.S. delayed the filing deadline for 2005 taxes to Oct. 16, 2006, for those living in the counties hardest hit by the storm.Taxpayers who did not file returns or pay their taxes by that extended deadline normally would begin receiving notices and, eventually, collection demands from the I.R.S.Mr. Everson’s recent order delayed those collection efforts until early 2007.Terry Lemons, an agency spokesman, told the Times that about 1.2 million taxpayers lived in the seven Louisiana parishes and three Mississippi counties where the I.R.S. had allowed people to delay payment of 2005 income taxes.The delay until next year is itself probably the right thing to do; but doing it for the wrong reason is something else.Imagine two men, both working to stop child predators. Obviously a noble cause; but while one is doing it to protect the kids from those who wish them harm, the second is working on this issue because he wants the kids all to himself.That’s the difference between doing something for the right reason, and doing it for the wrong reason.“We talk about the elections here every day,” Everson told Times reporters. “We deal with the Congress–is there going to be a new Finance Committee chairman, a new Ways and Means Committee chairman?”Everson may talk to his colleagues about such matters every day, but a general election certainly doesn’t happen every day. Nor do such blatant attempts to influence the outcome of an election, for that matter.
