This particular story is about an IRA, an experience with Waddell and Reid, a Kentucky accountant and the Kentucky Department of Revenue (taxation) Richard Litwin, a tax-type lawyer in Atlanta and more. Mr. Litwin had advised I could cash an IRA and move it to an alternate company, and so I placed it in the care of Waddell and Reid. Initially, Litwin didn't advise me that I had to notify the company the money was going to another company so I caught the mistake in time to avoid a great loss. I hadn't hired Richard Litwin. He was hired by Kenneth Schatten, my divorce lawyer who'd explained he didn't specialize in "taxes" or "criminal law" so he found Mr. Litwin, without my knowledge or consent. They were all paid very well, and my experience with these particular lawyers was they skimmed their fees and gave me what remained.
So when income tax time came I called Waddell and Reid's Mr. Meyer and told him to please release a portion of my IRA that I had to use for taxes. Mr. Meyer said he would, but explained I hadn't notified him in time to get the money before April 15. I wondered why he hadn't used overnight services, as he had about 7 days to get me (MY) money. He commented, "Oh, it would have cost ten dollars to have it overnighted." I told him ten dollars was nothing compared to penalties and red flags with the IRS.
It wasn't long before I removed my IRA from Waddell and Reid and was confronted by Mr. Meyer's father who said,
"Whatcha' gonna' do wit' de money, honey? Bah-muda?' Bah-amas?"
(Honey?)
"I don't guess it's really any of your business what I do, is it, Mr. Myers?"
Somewhere in the conversation he said he was a "contractor" for Waddell and Reid. And I thought to myself it was unfortunate the company didn't screen its contractors better. In closing his account after 2:00 p.m. on a Friday, the weekend lost about $3,000.
In any event, my taxes were paid late. I had a Kentucky accountant named Mr. John David Saunders, his name given by the same person who had lead me to Joey Spalding, a loan officer at Springfield State Bank. It's pretty self-explanatory, but important to note how "the system" and omissions and errors, or "little mistakes" can destroy a person's life, rattle emotions, create anger and distress, etc.
It's important these stories are known, so that the general working, taxed population with little schooling in complex financial systems and complicated tax laws can be on-guard and informed. It's frightening to know how many Americans have suffered horrors and losses, even all they own because of "little mistakes," (omissions and errors.)
Mr. Saunders charged $300.00 accounting fee to calculate my taxes.
Saunders wrote the amount, $1290 I should pay on a sticky-note with the address, and I trusted his numbers without reading the fine print in the stack of papers. Having been trained as a fine artist with little schooling in business and finance, I still find our tax, financial systems and IRA accounts with laws and loopholes often incomprehensible for normal, law abiding people. The system requires accountants for good folks to try and live honest. Living in a "specialized" society I trusted Mr. Saunders to perform according to good business/accounting ethics. But his little error and my negligence in questioning the numbers created an incredible and ongoing nightmare.
So when I received the notice from Kentucky's Department of Revenue that I had underpaid, I was shocked, and immediately went to Mr. Saunders to ask him why. Surely he should refund some of his fees or "eat" some of the difference. But you see the "little mistake" was mine because I trusted his note and didn't read the fine print.
So, I paid the difference.
And then I contacted Kentucky's tax department and spoke about my continuing payments and the stressful and continuing "red letters" from Kentucky's revenue people when I had already paid them. I told Mr. Saunders I was going to report the Kentucky Revenue Cabinet to the Federal Bureau of Investigation because they were committing fraud.
Mr. Saunders asked that I please do not do that, because he would take care of the problem. And miraculously it went away.
But you can see even after I paid them the entire amount with penalties they again attempted to bill me duplicate amounts moving on into the month of November.
Needless to say, the mail carrier after that and with other "little mistakes" in billing and information transactions, was perpetual bad news, coupled with the dead, bloody pets, slashed tires and other horrors.
Ever paid a banknote and then received unnecessary late notices? You then go back and pull out the records, make duplicates, write letters, etc. to prove to the bank they've made a "little mistake." That's happened too. And you wonder how many people have been ripped off by "little mistakes," because they weren't taught in public school how to adequately deal with a complicated and aggressive financial/tax system.
We have a wonderful country and the best people in the world. This blog is dedicated to Americans whose lives, families, and children will not be destroyed by "little mistakes," or omissions and errors.
I recall my aged grandmother rummaging helplessly for hours through stacks of mail–– papers made ridiculously confusing with medical and insurance statements. She didn't want to die without paying her bills, but she couldn't determine what was and wasn't a bill. Americans have been so flooded with unnecessary complications in every aspect of life, now a person cannot perform even a simple mechanical task without having a set of both, English and....metric tools.
Now working Americans will be paying billions of dollars to bail out financial "professionals," who apparently made too many "little mistakes." Are executive Bah-muda, Bah-hama foreign bank accounts protected with Golden Parachutes, and complicated finance/tax laws too? Back to the story....
"There's not a lawyer in Georgia who will take your case," said one Kentucky attorney.
"You don't have any lawsuits. There's too much money against you," said another, implying paid-off judges.
An FBI agent suggested I couldn't fight "the railroad," saying they had lawyers I "couldn't beat." The harassment and horror were coercion "compliance" tactics. I never would have dreamed law enforcement colluded, even if blindly with organized and/or political criminals to destroy a person's life or intimidate them to silence.
Tax-funded American public schools had taught us that only in Communist Russia would a person experience these horrors.
"The railroad has lawyers you just can't beat."
- Agent Brian Blanchard, F.B.I. Louisville, Kentucky
If you withdraw this from an IRA account, you will be penalized and lose about 1/2 of the amount. (He never said that, initially.)
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