Toddy is just too much. He may have wound up with a bill too big to pay, but I can assure you he knew about that bill back when he filed his taxes. He didn't start paying in installments until much later based on this statement in today's Tribune article:
He said that while he was working on proposing a payment plan, the Internal Revenue Service placed a lien on his home. That lien, filed in March, was for $11,668 due to the IRS for 2007.
“I’m paying in installments,” Stroger said. “I would never shirk my responsibility to pay taxes.”
Let's step through this shall we:
1 - To be on time his 2007 tax return had to be filed no later than April 15, 2008. He could have gotten an extension to file later, but an extension to file is not an extension on payment and the expectation is that the tax bill is paid when you file the extension form.
2 - We can infer, probably quite safely, that Toddy knew he had a big bill to pay by the time the April 2008 filing deadline arrived. However, it appears that negotiating a payment plan did not occur until recently, say in March 2009.
3 - Toddy says the lien was filed while he was proposing a payment plan. He seems a tad surprised, but the paperwork that taxpayers receive does state that enforcement action (including the filing of a lien) will be taken. Uncle will definitely file a lien if there is a payment plan to protect the government's interest, which is a routine action and taxpayers are advised that this will occur.
4 - About payment plans; unless Uncle is really being generous, the usual routine is to demand full payment up front. Uncle looks for assets (bank accounts are the usual suspects) from which payment can be obtained. To enter a payment plan you need to demonstrate that you can't pay in full. Kinda makes you wonder about Toddy's overall financial picture now, doesn't it? And we trust this man with our tax dollars?
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