The chief of the Vox Pop, above, says an audit found it owed $56,000.
Posted on 05/24/2010 7:09:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Restaurants Targeted in New Audits; 'I Will Fight That Until My Last Breath'
State sales-tax officials are turning up the heat on restaurateurs, auditing 60% more of the city's eateries in the fiscal year that just ended than the year before and leaving the industry with a case of agita.
The cash-strapped state conducted 1,077 sales-tax audits of New York City restaurants in fiscal year 2010, which ended March 31, compared with 646 the previous year. Those reviews found the restaurants owed the state $71.9 million in sales tax, compared with $40.6 million the year before, a 77% increase. About a quarter of that has been collected so far.
"We certainly have a need right now for multiple billions of dollars, and we're trying to do our best through effective enforcement of the current laws to narrow that gap so that the citizens of New York aren't deprived of important resource or that honest taxpayers aren't hit with an additional tax burden," said William Comiskey, deputy commissioner of tax enforcement for the state Department of Taxation and Finance.
Mr. Comiskey said "restaurants are one of the specific areas" that the department is focusing on in its policing of businesses in so-called cash-based sector.
State officials attribute the main reason for the surge of scrutiny to new programs that allows staff members to review two years worth of sales-tax returns through the mail or telephone conversations to determine if they should conduct a more-detailed field audit.
For the industry, the greater scrutiny has raised questions and concerns.
"Business is very difficult right now. Every penny counts. Every minute you're not spending working on improving your business, you're basically losing money," said Jeremy Merrin, a Manhattan restaurant owner who is currently being audited. "This is really taking our time and focus away."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I guess if they can’t pay, the state can just take over their businesses. Every problem has a solution, don’t you know?
Can you say, "shake down."
The government should pay more attention to trimming itself and less to harassing working people.
May 24, 1764, Bostonian lawyer, James Otis, denounces "taxation without representation" and called for the colonies to unite in demonstrating their opposition to Britain's new tax measures. 
Heh. :) That’s funny and sad at the same time.
Pretty soon the meters that monitor how many breaths one takes will be issued.
Are you a New Yorker?
Looks like the auditors are the states new bag men.
During his time, he was considered a hero and true patriot.
Today, the press would call him a crackpot.
1. Success in audits means only one thing: more audits. Look for this to become much more widespread.
2. Actually it means two things: the second being more unemployment as restaurants saddled with an audit judgment have to either lay off workers or close their doors all together. How's that help your sales tax proceeds?? Can you say "umemployment dole?"
RE: Are you a New Yorker?
Yes, a proud Long Islander, one of the few habitable places in this once great state.
In fact, other than the City of NY and surrounding suburbs, the rest of the state is pretty much an economic wasteland ( yes, I am including the once great city of Buffalo in the mix ).
Yes, you are so right, and to be quite accurate I would say "government shakedown". If the truth be known, by the time the government calculated the amount of money it took the unproductive beauracrats to document the case for the $50,000, the government probably spent another $100,000 in salaries and benefits.
I had a tax documentation problem in 2008, a year in which I lost at lease $120,000 in the market meltdown. It took me at lease a week of full time work to correct the documentation. The government said I owed them $1.2 million in additional taxes. I settled with them for $250.00. Our government litterally has no common sense. Were I incapacitated or not able to produce the documentation to defend my tax return, the government could have confiscated everything I own. I do not have $1.2 million in assets. I am just a working guy (no 6 figure income) who has saved and invested over the years.
We have created a greedy monster with polite and legalistic tentacles. Our government has become oppressive to the middle class.
Barney Frank, the infamous homosexual pervert from Massachusetts, has said recently that business exists for government. This of course makes him a Communist homosexual pervert. American citizens now exist for government, not the other way around.
This is one of the reasons I’m going Galt. I file a simple 1040 and take the standard deduction. I buy most non-food items off Craigslist or at garage/estate sales. When I don’t need stuff, I sell it on Craigslist.
What I am doing is legal and there is nothing they can take from me, so far, with anything like this. This shakedown thing is also one of the reasons I’ve never opened my own business. I remember my haircut lady showing me the individual City licenses she had to have for every one of her sinks and dryers in her salon. The whole thing is a shakedown.
My attitude about this started right after the Soviet Union collapsed. I saw an interview with a bar owner in Russia regarding organized crime. He said he paid taxes to support the police, and he paid protection money to the Mob. He then said that at least the money he paid to the mob actually got him protection.
It is getting to that point in this country. Those restaurants are nothing more than disrespected revenue sources for the organized crime syndicate called government. And the government does precious little for them for the money they spend. I’d rather pay the mob protection money to keep the auditors away.
Of course, many of these businesses will be forced out of business due to the back taxes owed. And others will drain the government by clogging up the courts. This whole thing is a fiasco.
>>America started as a nation because of thuggish acts like these. I guess we’ve become a nation of lambs ( to the slaughter ).<<
Wait’ll the unemployment benefits run out for a few million. The only thing keeping the lambs in check is the fear of losing what they have. When they have nothing, and there are a lot of them, things will get interesting.
I’ve been to Long Island. It’s nice. I like NYC, too.
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