Taxing Troubles

Today being "Tax Day" brings to mind my past inabilities to obtain complete and correct copies of my back federal income tax returns from the years I was married and filed jointly with my husband.

In 2005, the two private investigators (one ex-FBI and the other ex-DEA) from the Boerne area I'd hired to help me gather evidence against Ed Hodges and others regarding a fraudulent trust document began insisting that I needed to obtain copies of my back tax returns from the IRS but would not explain why. The former DEA agent said he had a good friend who worked for the IRS in Austin and that he'd get his friend to expedite my requests, so I went online as the p.i.s had instructed me, printed out the proper forms, filled them out, and mailed then to the IRS in Austin on 5/15/05, along with my check for $468.00 to pay for copies of the returns from the years the p.i.s had asked me to obtain ($39.00 each).

On 6/21/05, I received a check from the IRS for $351.00 with no explanation. Then on 6/29/05, I received copies of my federal tax returns from 1998, 1999, and 2000 (which happen to be the same ones handed to me by my divorce lawyer and accountant during my divorce negotiations that they said they'd been furnished by my husband and his accountant, except that these new copies had some unusual markings on them) plus a letter from the IRS dated 2/27/05 saying my returns from the other years I'd requested were not available, which explained the refund check I'd received.

I noticed that this packet had been mailed from zip code 78741 instead of 73301 where the IRS office was located, but no one would tell me whether this was significant or not. When I told the two p.i.s I was unable to obtain the documents they'd asked for and requested contact information for the one p.i.'s IRS friend so I could try to find out why I'd been denied copies of my records, the p.i. told me there was nothing more I could do and refused to give me his friend's information.

I have never been able to obtain complete and correct copies of my back tax returns from the government. In retrospect, I never actually saw any of these completed returns while I was married, either; my husband always brought home the signature page only for me to sign, and I did so because he insisted on having his father, his office manager, and their family's accountant handle all our finances and at the time, I had no reason not to trust them completely. In fact, on one especially memorable "Tax Day", I remember my husband suddenly bursting into an all-female fashion show being held to raise money for a local charity, running up to me while I was on the runway, asking me to sign our tax return, and then madly dashing out to howls of laughter from the audience which, as I told him later, was extremely embarrassing for me. (In retrospect, this incident has taken on an entirely different significance.)