WHITE COLLAR CRIME AND THE INNOCENT SPOUSE

Last Friday I received a letter out of nowhere from MA Dot. Translation, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The letter informed me that unless I paid or made "arrangements to pay" the $464,000 tax assessment on the 2.6 millions dollars my husband, (now ex), embezzled seven years ago, they are going to suspend my driver's license and right to operate any motor vehicle on any road in Massachusetts, "indefinitely."  Violation of the notice would be "punishable by jail."  When I relayed this horror to one of my best friends she responded in this way: "My husband and I think this is just some kind of a hoax." I had to assure her that it was not. Yes people, the government taxes ill-gotten funds and if you are married at the time your spouse committed a financial crime then you too are liable for the taxes.  Even though the majority of the funds my husband embezzled were returned, according to the MA DOR, me and my ex-husband were responsible jointly for taxes on the full amount. 

After peeling myself off the floor I called the number on the form letter to inquire about the absurdity of receiving this notice because I had already complied with filing innocent spouse paperwork years earlier, but had never heard back from them.  I assumed I had been granted a full abatement.  My "new" case worker said they were missing a form and since it had been so many years since they had opened my case, they needed half a million dollars from me or they would put me in jail.   Translation - they dropped the ball, not me.  If they wanted one more form from me, they had five years to request it! By this time, five years of interest had been added to the tax bill.  After telling the agent I had no intention of ever paying a debt I didn't owe and that I had assumed had already been formally discharged, the agent said I should file for a "hardship." That sounded pretty good to me to make this all go away again until I got the form in the mail that requested my banking information, my employer's name and telephone number and an income and expense balance.  It wasn't until I fully ABSORBED this option that I realized this was nothing more than an opportunity for the MA DOR to garnish my bank funds and my paycheck!! I then also realized that if I were to complete and return the hardship forms then I would be acknowledging that I am in fact liable to pay this money.  What I needed was an another full abatement. 

After digging through boxes of stored paperwork I finally found copies of the original paperwork I sent to the DOR years earlier and sent copies to the new agent working my cases, via certified mail.  Then nothing.  I was both livid and panicked that I would be arrested at any minute and hauled off to jail for non-payment, as the letter promised. I finally called my agent but that agent was no longer working my case. I learned that I had been assigned a new agent who made me start all over again.  A month passed and again, I heard nothing from the MA DOR so I sent yet another letter by certified mail and this is the response I received: "Dear Taxpayer: The Massachusetts Department of Revenue is currently working on the inquiry about your inquiry in response to our inquiry please complete the MA Form 84 along with a Ma Form CA-6. If you have any questions...." Yes. It REALLY said this. Illiterate and nonsensical. Verbatim.  Where is the due performance to me from the MA DOR?  This is what I'm dealing with folks. 

Could it get any worse? That question has been asked and answered many times over the past seven years.  That the MA Dot/DOR had only given me a matter of days to pay nearly half a million dollars in taxes or go to jail, and then bounce me around like a rubber ball was not only egregious, but just another example of the far reaching and long term consequences of a spouse's financial crime.  

I finally got fed up with dealing with the MA DOR, their strong armed agents and my ex husband's never ending mess, so I wrote my own threatening letter to the tax man and told them to either arrest me or leave me the hell alone. Not long after, I received a full abatement. 

The long arm of the law just keeps getting longer and the fallout of white collar crime is without end.