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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1997)
• « ’. . » J > . * « • . I B aGQB3BBHs£99w OCT. 1, 1997 Page A2 (Ehr P a r t tanh IRS employee 1RS u n d e r fir e from S e n a te axpayers told a Senate Jacobs o f California said on the sec committee last Wednes ond day o f the Senate Finance Com day how they filed for di mittee hearings on IRS practices. The owner o f a small construction vorce and bankruptcy, paid thou company said he let the IRS keep sands o f dollars they did not really $50,000 o f a seized government pay owe and floundered for years in a ment check to settle a case because it bureacratic maze to correct wrongs would have cost far more to fight the by the Internal Revenue Service. IRS and would have jeopardized his One woman tearfully told how her business. husband filed for divorce and she The case stemmed from the IRS filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to holding Tom Savage, 69, o f Delaware prevent the IRS from seizing their responsible for a subcontractor’s tax property. Another woman said she and her problems. Savage said he was pursued de husband paid $ 11,000 they did not spite a newly revealed Justice Depart owe to the IRS to put an end to the ment letter to an IRS attorney dated a g e n c y ’s en fo rcem en t actions, November 1993 which said “we be which could have c losed her optom lieve that the levy in question was etrist husband’s practice. wrongful.” The issue was over an identifica A retired Roman Catholic priest said tion number the IRS had given them, he fought the IRS for months over a duplicate o f someone else’s. money it said it was owed after he “Only after you have experienced failed to fill out the correct form related w h at my h u sb an d an d I en dured to a charitable trust set up by his late would you consider paying an IRS mother. bill th a t you d o n ’t ow e,” Nancy T “For eight months I lived in con stant worry, if not fear, that the trust that my dear mother had established to help the poor would be penalized because o f what I can only call the unprofessional, calloused, and indif ferent behavior o f IRS emplyees who are devious enough never to sign their names to any notices that they send out,” Lawrence Ballweg said. For Katherine Lund Hicks o f Cali fornia, it began when she got divorced and found she was saddled with the tax bill for the last joint return for tax year 1983. In an out o f court settlement the IRS agreed to reduce tax owed to about $3,500. Hicks said she tried to pay the IRS, wanting a clean slate when she rem ar ried. The agency did not take the money because o f its recordkeeping discrepancies and told her she owed no tax. It then filed a tax lien against Hicks. She said an IRS officer told her she did not owe anything for 1983 taxes, ...said black and Mexican American students can't compete ujith white students. T can-A m erican ‘c u ltu re s’ do not place a high value on academ ic achievement.” M arc L evin, p re sid e n t o f the stu d e n t g ro u p , sa id T u e sd a y th a t G ra g lia ’s co m m en ts w ere blow n out o f p ro p o rtio n . H e said h is g ro u p su p p o rts d iv e rs ity , but not a ffirm a tiv e actio n . UT Law Dean Mike Sharlot said an investigation concluded that there were no grounds for disciplin ary action against Graglia, and no evidence that he discrim inates against students based on race or ethnicity. S h a rlo t said G ra g lia has been exp ressin g such view s for years. to encourage achievement. Failure is not looked upon with disgrace.” State legislators have demanded his ouster, but Jackson said that would profes only make Graglia a martyr. “ W hat we must do is isolate him as a social p a ria h ,” Jackson said. He added that Graglia and univer sity officials still must answer for what he said. “ H e has legal grounds for free speech, b u t no m oral gro u n d and no scientific gro u n d for racist, fascist, in accu rate speech,” Ja c k so n said. Graglia in a statement Tuesday stood by his opposition to affirmative action programs, but that his com ments were misinterpreted, although he “ regrets th a t the result has been an emotional confrontation.” “ I realize now, especially after be ing called by some cordial Mexican- A m erican and black p aren ts, th a t it was carelessly put, and I regret it,” he said. “I do not know and did not mean to say, as I apologetically explained to several callers, th a t black and Mexi “He’s a voice in the wil derness,” S h a rlo t said. The 5th U.S. C ircuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling against race-based admissions in a case involv ing the UT law school. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the decision to stand. A p p le Computer focuses on uihcit it does best pple C om puter vow ed last friday to rem ain a le a d in g p la y e r in the computer market by focus ing on sectors where it has a strong hold and on its tie-up with rival M icrosoft SAFEWAY FOOD & DRUG Look For Your Safeway Weekly Shopping Guide “Clearly in those kinds of situations the IRS would ab solutely apologize, situations in which we simply did not serve the taxpayer properly, he added. (IRS). “Does the IRS cover up abuses? The answer is yes... The IRS pro tects itself, whether right or wrong, said the employee, who offered an inside view in exchange for ano nymity. In e m o tio n a l te stim o n y on Wednesday, aggrieved taxpayers told how the IRS had ruined their lives with what they said were un justified and outrageous demands. Commitee chairman Sen. William Roth, a Delaware Republican, said at the start of the hearing: “There is a need for a cultural change in the Internal Revenue Service.” W Medical teams Inter national (NWMTI) intro duced Bas Vanderzalm as its new president. Vanderzalm will serve as only the second president in the history of NW Medical Teams International. Bom in Holland, Vanderzalm emi grated to Canada in the early 5 0 's. He then moved to Utah in the late 1950’s where he was raised in a community of Christian Reformed first generation immigrants. In 1983, Vanderzalm graduated with high honors from Boston Uni versity with an MBA in H ealthcare Management. He has also received amasterofdivinity in Pastoral coun seling from Andover Newton Theo logical School in Massachusetts. He initiated hiscollegecareer in 1969 at Calvin College in Michigan re ceiving his Bachelor of Arts in En glish and History. The 49 year old Vandezalm and his wife, Lynn (an editor forTyndale House Publishing), have a 22 year old son. Matt, who resides in St. Louis, MO and an 18 year old daugh ter. Alisa, who attends George Fox University in Newberg, OR. The Vanderzalms make their home in Newberg. N Bastian ("BAS') Vanderzalm As New President Beef Rib Eye Steak • Bone In • Valu Pack, 4 or more • Smaller packages, $3.18 lb. • SAVE up to $2.01 lb. EXPIRES ,0/07/97 SAFEW AY !$)1 COUPON 18-ct. Large AA Eggs 98 1 Safeway large white eggs • SAVE up to 711 » First 1 with coupon In Your Oregonian FOODday in the Portland Metro Area ...andsave more shopping United States. He also repeated A pple’s stance that the new partnership with M icrosoft was in the interest o f its customers. ‘ ’We believe that Mac customers have a lot to gain as Apple and M icrosoft work together to make sure that the Mac plat form is vibrant,’ ’ he told a forum at A sia’s largest PC exhibition, the World PC Expo 97, which is being held in M akuhan, near at Safeway Enjoy Extra Savings With The SAFEWAY EXTRA In-Store Savings Guide Tokyo. Under the deal, M icrosoft will invest $150 million in non-voting stock o f the troubled PC maker, and also develop more programs for Macintosh, including fu ture versions o f its Office software, Internet Explorer browser and other soft ware. Schiller also said the firm ’s new board members, appointed in a recent reshuffle, have the experience and passion to re turn Apple to the forefront o f the com puter industry. The new appointees include Larry Ellison, who leads Oracle Corp and Gareth Chang, senior vice president o f Hughes Electronics Corp Frank Keith, spokesman for the IRS, said: “ I think the testim ony this m o rning spoke for itself. C le a rly w e ’ve had e v id en ce o f ta x p a y e rs w ho te stifie d about situ atio n s in w hich they w ere not p ro p e rly served, and situ a tio n s w here IRS failures disrupted their liv e s.” its abuses. The employee was speaking on the third day o f a committee hearing on alleged arrogance, callousness and incompetence at the hated and feared Internal Revenue Service STEAK SALE A Corp The sectors include com puter educa tion and content creation, said Philip Schiller, vice-president for worldwide product marketing at Apple. “ W e need a laser-sharp focus,” said Schiller, adding Apple already is the top computer education company in the world with over $2 billion in annual sales in the “Our lives are now forever altered. Joint tenancy, joint bank accounts, joint tax re turns are no longer a part of our life,” she said. “My credit is completely destroyed and my husband’s credit is seri ously damaged. We will suf fer the effects of this IRS collection for the rest of our lives.” An anonymous IRS employee, hidden behind a screen and speak ing through a voice distorter, told the U.S. Senate finance committee last Thursday that the tax collection service sometimes tried to conceal W M edical Teams Inte r n a tio n a l In tro d u ces U n iv e r s ity o f T ex a s L a w P r o fe s s o r he Rev. Jesse Jackson told University o f Texas stu dents two weeks ago to skip classes taught by a law sor who said black and Mexican American students can’t compete with white students. “W e’re not the problem, he is the problem,” Jackson told the nearly 5,000 students assembled below the steps o f the cam pus’ main Tower. “You have no obligation to be in his class.” Lino Graglia, a 67-year-old pro fessor o f constitutional law, made his remarks last week during the an nouncement o f a student organiza tion - Students for Equal O pportu nity - that supports a recent federal court ruling preventing race-based admissions policies in Texas. He is the group’s faculty adviser. “ B lacks an d M exican-A m eri- cans a re not academ ically com peti tive w ith w hites in selective institu tions,” Graglia said then. “ It is the result p rim arily of c u ltu ra l effects. They have a cu ltu re th a t seem s not but the only way to get rid o f the tax lien was to pay the assessment, which had since risen to $8,000. “You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you’re afraid to talk too much to each other for fear you’ 11 take it out on your spouse,” Hicks said in tears. “If you do talk, it’s about the IRS. We were newlyweds. 1 cannot describe the guilt, knowing that I had brought my new husband into this.” W hen her new husband’s salary was levied by the IRS, he set up a separate residence and filed for di vorce because in California that ac tion means the salary is separate prop erty. Hicks said she filed for bankruptcy to buy time to figure out what to do so the IRS w ould not go after her husband’s retirement fund, which was considered community property. blows whistle One coupon per customer Coupon valid 10/01/97 thru 10/07/97 at your Oregon Salewa^Stores (except Milton-Freewater) and S Washington stores serving Clark. Wahkiakum. 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