IRS audits woman for not making enough money.

$10 an hour with 2 kids? IRS pounces

Rachel Porcaro knows she's hardly rich. When you're a single mom making 10 bucks an hour, you don't need government experts to tell you how broke you are.

But that's what happened. The government not only told Porcaro she was poor. They said she was too poor to make it in Seattle.

It all started a year ago, when Porcaro, a 32-year-old mom with two boys, was summoned to the Seattle office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She had been flagged for an audit.

She couldn't believe it. She made $18,992 the previous year cutting hair at Supercuts. A few hundred of that she spent to have her taxes prepared by H&R Block.

"I asked the IRS lady straight upfront — 'I don't have anything, why are you auditing me?' " Porcaro recalled. "I said, 'Why me, when I don't own a home, a business, a car?' "

The answer stunned both Porcaro and the private tax specialist her dad had gotten to help her.

"They showed us a spreadsheet of incomes in the Seattle area," says Dante Driver, an accountant at Seattle's G.A. Michael and Co. "The auditor said, 'You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in Seattle."

More...

This is almost unbelievable!

I don't see how things end well for this nation if this is now how we're running things...



[edit on 6-12-2009 by loam]

I was told by a friend who went into accounting that big deductions when you're poor can cause flags to be raised.

So, I'm wondering if those few hundred to H&R block raised a flag.
Seems like a HUGE expense when you make so little and there is online software that can do it for far less.
I know I cannot afford a few hundred to get my taxes done.

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


Slightly off topic I know but did you know you can claim your accounting costs?

Only thing is you will have to claim it in the next years tax.

Going to someone like H&R Block is a total waste of time too, since they know very little about tax it seems, particularly for things like the above mentioned.

So now we have the champion of the poor going after the poor with a vicious agenda huh? Is there nothing Obama won't do? What a hypocrite he is. He could just tell these people to back off but I suspect we will see even more of this from this "black progressive POTUS."

reply to post by northof8


obama isn't a supercomputer, he can't be everywhere. If things like thsi can't be delegated to those under him then everyone in the states is doomed. This is just an example of "the system" doing the job of a real person, horribly. boyoboy you are way off topic.
Oh, and btw, your next president wont be any different

Originally posted by heyo
reply to post by northof8

 

obama isn't a supercomputer, he can't be everywhere. If things like thsi can't be delegated to those under him then everyone in the states is doomed. This is just an example of "the system" doing the job of a real person, horribly. boyoboy you are way off topic.
Oh, and btw, your next president wont be any different

Yes, I am well aware of that but every time something went wrong no matter how insignificant Bush was to blame. Obama owns this one and I have no doubt that when he reads crap like this he laughs.

Here is a woman not on welfare and the Obama machine goes after her with a vengeance. They would rather her be on welfare than actually working for a living. This is how these people work.

Edit to add: I am not off topic. I am giving a reason why she is being attacked and that reason is Obama. It's not off topic, it's a theory of why she is being audited and forced into welfare by the one term Obama machine.

[edit on 6-12-2009 by northof8]

I wonder if she attended a TEA Party rally, or wrote her representatives in opposition to Government run health care?

OR...I wonder if someone reported her to Obama's website that was looking for people opposed to Government run health care?

reply to post by northof8

Obama owns this one and I have no doubt that when he reads crap like this he laughs.

Here is a woman not on welfare and the Obama machine goes after her with a vengeance. They would rather her be on welfare than actually working for a living. This is how these people work.

Edit to add: I am not off topic. I am giving a reason why she is being attacked and that reason is Obama. It's not off topic, it's a theory of why she is being audited and forced into welfare by the one term Obama machine.

You must have not read the article then?

Republicans have called the credits "backdoor welfare" and tried to cancel them. When they controlled Congress, they ordered the IRS to ramp up audits of people who claim the credit.

In 2006, credit recipients such as Rachel were more than twice as likely to get audited as the rest of the 140 million individual tax filers.

Interesting, no?

reply to post by northof8


Sorry, I was unaware that the president ran every single aspect of the country personally. I guess I just thought that the hundreds of thousands of beaurocrats working within government positions throughout the states were actually charged with, ya know, tasks.
Thank you for correcting me. It's easier now to understand why he isn't getting much done so far in his presidency.

reply to post by Chadwickus


It is really interesting... In fact so much so now that democraps run every branch of government in Washington. They are going after the rich, poor and everyone in between.

The article goes on to blame republicans when the democraps control everything and you are drawing what conclusion? That it's the republicans that are a fault here? You are serious?

So the republicans give the IRS marching orders and the democraps don't reverse it? Come on now... Anything the republicans try to do is thwarted and anything they did the democraps don't like is rescinded. So Obama hates the poor. Is it really a surprise?

reply to post by northof8


A very unsophisticated sleight of hand. This is why the idiot conservative base keeps losing.

Um, it may shock some here but the IRS RANDOMLY picks some people to be audited regardless of how much or how little money they make. I was hoping some might find that well, democratic.
I'm no lover of the IRS, but it seems to be it would be patently unfair if only big earners were audited.

reply to post by loam
This low level harassment is what targeted people usually get. Someone with connections does not like Rachel. Apparently, the IRS wants Rachel to move away from Seattle ,or maybe someone connected with the government knows Seattle is doomed and is trying to save Rachel's life. She is definitly getting special treatment.

Bush took IRS agents off the tail of rich tax dodgers and sent them after people making less than ten thousand dollars a year. Obama has hired more IRS agents. If they are still only targetting the poor ,shame on Obama. A flat tax would scale back some of the IRS fun. No income Tax at all would turn the United States into happier and more prosperous country. The IRS owes its existence to the federal reserve.

No it is not harassment.

It is not even intimidating if you have declared all your income and told the truth.

And if you hire a professional to prepare your tax return, then you can be fairly certain that it has all been completed properly.
So what is all the fuss about ?

And yes, people are randomly selected for audit all the time.

Kind of like being pulled over by a cop for routine license and registration check.
If everything is in order, then there is no problem, is there ?

So how exactly does a government entity fully flexing it's gunpoint extortion muscle on an American citizen devolve into this stupid dem v rep #?

Can you not see the stupidity?

It doesn't matte who pretends to be "in charge". Did we all forget the Browns being beaten and arrested after a several month military standoff to collect their extortion fees uner Bush?

The enemy is the extortion that is taxation, period.


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reply to post by Silver Shadow
I disagree politely. The IRS is harasing a woman who probably eats only Ramen noodles. How does anyone prove they are under consuming? I know; place cameras in her house in order to make sure she only eats Ramen noodles. She has nothing to fear, so she should not mind big government watching her every move. Meanwhile the government is looking the other way as connected thugs make fortunes on street drugs. All those not connected have much to fear from our government.

I think what the IRS thought was going on or why the return was flagged is because she can't afford to live where she lives with the amount of money she makes, so she must be doing something illegal to make the money needed to fill the purse.

Did a human flag her return or a computer?

Almost the same thing happened to me some years back.... I had lost a part time job that was paying me pretty good and I ended up taking a different job that paid quite alot less.... I was not audited per se but a field agent type did come to my on base quarters and ask me why i was paying less in my federal taxes....

I showed some papers and then politiely told him to take a hike..... nothing heard from again..

these people are scary and they are dangerous.... and especially since the economy is shaky..they are looking for anything they can steal from all of us

I think if you really got down to the bottom of it, she was audited for tip income, she is a hairdresser after all. I think she didn't report her tip income.

I agree with this last post. I don't buy the hairdresser's story for a minute. These "woe is me" stories are beyond the pale. Who contacts the media to complain about their tax problems with the IRS?

Lots of cash businesses - such as hairdressing, etc. - earn tons of money from tips that are never taxed. Tax evasion is a serious issue in this country, and I don't buy it for a minute that this lady is really hurting financially. Most hairdressers I know charge a pretty nice fee for the ladies to get their hair cut, and cross-sell shampoo and all the high-priced hair lotions and potions to boot.

The comment about her coming from a small, Italian family at the end of the story just cracks me up. Like something right out of a Godfather movie or the Sopranos.

Don't believe everything you read. There are 2 sides to every story. For every innocent tax payer that might run amuck with the IRS, there are 100's of tax evaders that get away with ripping off the American government, and - ultimately - the taxpayers that do pay their taxes properly.

I have little sympathy for tax evasion, let alone someone that has the gall and audacity to hire a reporter to tell her side of the story without even interviewing the other side of the table. Sheesh.