IRS files tax lien on lawyer's property
BY RAY GRONBERG, The Herald-Sun
November 20, 2006 12:23 am
DURHAM -- Regulators from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service have filed an $809,110 tax lien against the property of a Durham lawyer who's been active on the local political scene.
The Oct. 25 filing targeted Jerry Clayton, lead partner of Clayton, Myrick, McClanahan & Coulter, a Parrish Street law firm. It sought payment on the unpaid balance of personal income taxes assessed in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
Attempts to reach Clayton for comment Thursday, Friday and Sunday were unsuccessful. But a Duke Law School tax expert, Lawrence Zelenak, said the filing means that IRS officials believe there's no real dispute about whether the taxes are owed.
"The lien means the liability for the tax has already been established, and it's purely a collection matter," Zelenak said. "If the liability was ever in question, the litigation has already been concluded, or maybe he never contested the liability."
Another Duke Law School tax expert, Alan Weinberg, said the IRS files liens after sending a target four or five warning letters over a period of about four months.
The escalating series of warning letters is supposed to give the taxpayer advance notice that the federal agency intends to file the lien and "start looking for assets to seize."
"The right to levy on property is an extremely powerful instrument," said Weinberg, the director of Duke's Low Income Taxpayer Clinic and a former IRS district counsel who from 1981 to 1995 was in charge of all the agency's legal matters in North Carolina.
The IRS filing provided few details about Clayton's liability. It specified that he owed $273,567 for 2002, $245,006 for 2003 and $290,537 for 2004. But it wasn't clear whether those amounts represented unpaid taxes only or also included penalties and interest.
The form did specify that the assessments for the three tax years date respectively from November 2003, May 2006 and November 2005.
Zelenak and Weinberg both said the filing of a lien indicates that IRS officials don't intend to pursue criminal charges against the targeted taxpayer.
"Once they go to collection, they've pretty well made a decision they're not going to do anything criminally," Weinberg said.
A lien is a serious step all by itself.
"You have to either raise the money, or anticipate you'll be losing the property they put the lien on," Zelenak said.
IRS officials filed the lien in the clerk of court's office in Durham County. Records there indicate that Clayton is having trouble with state tax collectors.
The state Department of Revenue filed two "certificates of tax liability" against him on Oct. 4 that seek to collect on a $1,735 balance from 2003 and a $66,097 balance from 2004. The state papers – the legal equivalent of civil judgments – specify that the totals include unpaid income taxes, plus penalties and interest.
Clayton isn't the only member of the Durham bar who's had tax trouble in recent years.
Lawyers Ann and Thomas Loflin pleaded guilty last year to six counts each of willful failure to file state income-tax returns. The charges alleged that they didn't file their returns for the years 1998 to 2003. They received two years' probation. The N.C. Bar Association later suspended their law licenses, but they received conditional stays of those sanctions.
Clayton is a player in the politics of the local bar, mostly as an opponent of Durham's incumbent district attorneys. He and his law partners helped bankroll challenges to former DA Jim Hardin in 1994 and incumbent Mike Nifong this year.
Clayton attended a mid-September political dinner in Raleigh orchestrated by former state attorney general and secretary of state Rufus Edmisten, with several other Nifong opponents who wanted to persuade write-in candidate Steve Monks to drop out of the DA's race so another challenger would have a better chance to win.
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http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/hsletters/
wo reasons why Nifong should drop rape case
Two reasons why District Attorney Mike Nifong should drop the case against the Duke lacrosse players: 1) They may be libertines and stupid for putting themselves in such a compromising position, but they are clearly not guilty of rape and/or assault; and 2) The heavy criticism he continues to receive over his intransigence will give other DAs pause when actual victims make similar accusations.
Two reasons why he won't: 1) He forlornly hopes that by some miracle he'll get a guilty verdict and thus save face; 2) By dragging it out to its inevitable conclusion he wreaks both debilitating and financial havoc upon the accused and their families. Terrible thing, being labeled a sex offender. Innocent or guilty, you're pretty much toast.
David Highlands
St. Petersburg, Fla.
November 20, 2006
Here I am
In response to Dock Terrell's question, [Letters, Nov. 13], this neo-con is down on her knees praying that the Duke lacrosse players receive a fair trial and that our courageous young soldiers did not die in vain.
Paula Mann
Durham
November 20, 2006
Read the record
In response to Laura Blasberg's Nov. 12 letter, the following is an excerpt from Blasberg's personal profile posted at her employer's, a New York law firm, Web site:
"Blasberg's a director of Take Back the News, a charitable organization that confronts the misrepresentation and under representation of sexual assault in mainstream media with the goal of improving both the quantity and quality of media coverage of sexual assault."
Perhaps Blasberg should read all of MSM's (mainstream media's) coverage on the Duke lacrosse case. She will find that the quantity and quality of the reporting in support of the alleged victim in this case has been immense. For months, both local and national media were falling all over each other to report on the alleged atrocities perpetrated upon the alleged victim, completely disregarding the accused's. Only after scientific and medical evidence, witness statements, police reports and the accuser's own varying statements were made public, did MSM begin to question and report on the veracity of this case.
One of the many ironies in this case is that the prosecution, not the defense, seems to be resorting to smoke and mirrors since evidence hoped for didn't materialize.
BETH BREWER
Durham
November 20, 2006