January 17, 2012.

“Hello, Mr. Cince”, this is Brian Peterson. “ I have looked at every angle on this Sheldon Jones case and it appears that there is no doubt that he died in 2010. I don’t think its worth the effort to check on the value of the REIT stock do you? Except maybe to justify the charitable deduction, but its pecuniary anyway and if the value is short, more stock would go to the charity.”

“Nah, Brian, don’t hassle with it, its probably in the ballpark and maybe even overvalued slightly if my bet is correct. Since there is no step-up in basis for income tax purposes for folks dying in 2010, these folks will have their father’s basis, so we’ll get something if the REIT is ever sold. Just close the file and send them a closing letter, the long form.”

February 15, 2012

Roger Johnson opened up the thin letter from the IRS. He knew what it was before opening it. It was a closing letter for the Estate of Sheldon Jones. He picked up the telephone.

“Hello, Christine, the IRS has signed off on the Estate tax return, you can distribute the assets of the estate into the Trust and to the Foundation and close the estate.”

She called Lupe, “Hello Lupe, the Service agreed that no tax is due.”

Lupe smiles on beach in Panama drinking a pina’ colada served by a scantily clad young woman, and says, “You know I could get used to this.”

February 15, 2015.

Christine picked up the newspaper and her blood goes cold. Her husband picks up the paper and reads the headline out loud. “Communist Junta in Panama”. “I wonder if your Uncle Lupe is going to seek asylum in the USA? And I guess he has no money anymore.”

After procuring the telephone number of the backup facility from Dr. McGonagle’s secretary Peterson called the company and once he got to the office of the head of security Buck Banjo, he asked, “Hi, this is Brian Peterson from the IRS, and no we’re not auditing you, we’re reviewing an estate tax return for someone and wanted to know if you have had any security breaches in the last two years where someone’s dental records might have been swapped?”

“None that I recall. We’ve of course had lots of people try to hack in do damage to our system, but no records have been altered from hacking that I know of? We run a fairly sophisticated program here every day that compares files at the end of the day with files from the previous day and where they differ they are flagged with when the file was altered, and then we check the times with the origins of incoming data streams from our customers. If there was a data change, it would have to have originated from the customer or we would have investigated it. What dentist is this?”, said Buck. “Dr. McGonagle,” replied Brian. “Let me check my sheets, nope, no problems with McGonagle, ever” Buck responded. “Sorry”.

Brian called Laura, “Laura, I hate to impose, but could you call Mr. Jones physician to see where he kept his records and whether they were secure.” “Sure, Brian, but you’ll owe me a home cooked Irish meal” teased Laura.

“Hello, Dr. Stephens, this is Laura Holden, the Medical Examiner in Virginia, how are you today. I’m following up on the Sheldon Jones case. I have been asked by the IRS to check and make sure that the body I checked was really Sheldon Jones, I don’t know why. How did you keep your records”. “In my office here and electronically backed up offsite. Before I sent them to you, I doubled checked the hard copy with the electronic copy to ensure that they were identical and they were”, replied Dr. Stephens. “Okay, that’s good enough for me”, said Laura, “sorry to bother you”.

Laura then dialed the number for Brian Peterson, “Hi, Bri, this is Laura, I just got off the phone with Dr. Stephens, it was Jones”. “He would have to have been some sort of chameleon to change his DNA, his dental records, and his height in hard copy and computer”, added Laura.

“Thanks Laura, I just wanted to be sure I was thorough here”, Brian responded. “I guess I need to buy some corned beef and cabbage”.

January 15, 2012.

“Hello, Barry, this is Brian Peterson with the IRS. Thanks for sending over the file.” “You’re welcome”, responded the NTSB agent. “Did you ever determine the cause of the crash?”asked Peterson. Barry smiled, because there was no official determination of the crash.

“No, we made no final findings. You see this plane is very air-worthy, one of the safest in the air and they rarely go down. It might have been pilot error or hypoxia due to depressurization of the cabin. Lots of theories in our shop, but nothing definitive.”

“Barry, could Mr. Jones have faked his own death”, Brian asked hopefully. “How do you explain the dead body in the plane which matches the decedent’s description, dental records, and DNA, if it was a fake. And that was a very real plane crash. Now if you were to ask me if he crashed the plane on purpose to kill himself…” Barry’s voice faded off. “Nah, I’m sorry, that’s a real stretch, since the pilot parachuted out. Of course the Pilot might have wanted him dead or killed him, but that’s a stretch, too since he and the Pilot were close according to all witnesses.”

Even if it was murder, Brian thought, that doesn’t get us around the Estate tax since a murderer is not entitled to inherit from the estate, therefore, you can’t even make out a tax fraud case. Better to leave it up to the forensic experts like hot Laura, he thought.

Brian called the dentist, Sam McGonagle. “I understand that you faxed over the dental records for the late Sheldon Jones, is that correct?” asked Brian. “Absolutely, I have a digital image which I got from my offsite digital storage facility, since my hard files were burned in a fire”. “How are you certain that someone didn’t tamper with the records?” queried Brian hopefully. “As far as I know these folks have the state of the art security on their records. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, but they didn’t report anything out of the ordinary to me,” responded McGonagle somewhat perturbed by the insinuation of some IRS sort. “Thanks for your help, who is your offsite storage company?”, responded Brian. “You’ll have to ask my secretary, I don’t know off the top of my head, they’re in New Jersey somewhere”.

December 15, 2011

Brian Peterson opened up the file in front of him. A rich person died in 2010. Sheldon Jones. He looked at the death certificate saw Laura’s name on it and figured it would be a good excuse to call her as if he needed any. Things had been going well between them. He’d even gotten used to the smell of rubbing alcohol and formaldehyde on her.

“Hi Laura, this is Brian.” “Hey, how’s my favorite sexy IRS agent doing?”, Laura purred. “How many other sexy IRS agent’s do you know?” Brian fired back. “I’ll never tell”, said Laura with a mirthful wink in her tone. Brian changed his tone, “I’m sorry Laura but this is a bidness call. You did an autopsy on one Sheldon Jones.” “Yes, plane crash if I remember correctly, DNA and Dental records proved identity and date of death was when the plane went down. Body was burned badly, plane was owned by Jones, and the flight manifest reported that he was the passenger. The pilot apparently jumped out and Jones was unconscious and the Pilot could not get a chute on him.”

“Sounds like an open and shut case to me”, Brian said. “I’ll check with the NTSB and get their report on this before closing this file. Looks like this guy really died in 2010 and there is no trace of any doubt here.

July 1, 2011.

Christine could not restrain herself, she had just had a fight with her husband and needed to talk to someone, and Phillipe was not all that interested in listening to her complaining. After getting no satisfaction from her brother she called to Panama. “Hello, Dad?”

“Dammit, Christine, don’t call me Dad, don’t you know that these phones can be bugged. I am Lupe for the rest of my life, got it?” “Sorry, D.., uh I mean Lupe”, she responded. “I’m really upset because Freddy just called me a dumb bitch when I burned dinner!” She started to sob. The voice on the other end spoke soothingly too her with a bit of a central American brogue. “You know I love my favorite little girl. I know people down here now that can have him killed, would you like that?” “Oh stop it”, she cried, “now you’re making fun of me.” “No, just trying to make my favorite one laugh and put things in perspective.”

July 16, 2011.

“Sign here on page 1, Christine and sign this letter requesting prompt assessment. Okay we’re all done, I’ll copy it and get it in the mail today with all the attachments”, Roger Johnson told her. “You’re very lucky in a twisted way your dad died this year and not next year. It saved your family $175 Million in estate taxes. I know that’s small consolation to losing your dad, but at least you don’t have to pay the government, too.” “Thanks Mr. Johnson, you’re very kind to tell me that. I think my dad is probably happy about that too, where ever he is”, Christine responded.