The Community of Idiots
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Posted on 09/15/2009 8:40:24 PM PDT by Saije
The U.S. Tax Court ruled Monday that Brooklyn, N.Y. tax lawyer William G. Halby, 78, had no legal basis to deduct prostitutes and pornography as medical expenses on his federal tax returns. Judge Joseph Robert Goeke upheld the Internal Revenue Service's determination that Halby owed $21,000 in back taxes plus $4,000 in accuracy-related penalties for his disallowed write-off of $120,000 of what the court delicately (and in quotations) called "service providers" as well as pornographic materials.
According to the opinion, Halby did maintain careful records as is generally required for deductions. He "kept track of these visits in a journal," the court said, logging in dates, names and amounts, although there's no mention in the opinion that the prostitutes provided receipts. To his tax return's Schedule A, used to claim medical deductions, Halby added an attachment that provided "only vague descriptions of the types of costs" he was trying to deduct.
According to the Tax Court opinion, Halby, who represented himself, argued the costs should be allowed because of "the positive health effects of sex therapy." But the court said no doctor had prescribed this treatment for Halby, who also "did not discuss these visits with his doctors afterwards to determine their impact on his health."
Accordingly, the court ruled his "payments to various prostitutes were personal expenses not prescribed by a doctor and not intended to treat a medical condition." The court also noted: "Patronizing a prostitute is illegal in the state of New York."
In the two years at question in the case, 2004 and 2005, Halby spent $108,000 on prostitutes, $7,000 on materials and $5,000 in what the court called "bank and finance charges incurred in connection with loans used to pay for the claimed medical expenses."
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Hey, don’t knock it until you’re over 70...like me.
The irony is quite rich with this one...
ACORN, sorry... I mean — COI — will not be happy about this now.
INDEED.
THX.
They aren’t???? Damn ACORN people. That’s the last time I go to them for tax advice.
What about using them as dependents?
You’ve raised a good kid.
No it doesn’t! It sounds like all you have to do is to find a doctor or a shrink who will recommend “sex therapy”. Then you have to check in once in a while to see if the therapy is “working” or if it needs to be “modified” somehow for better effect! There is still time left in the year to get those things handled.
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