I work for the IRS. My job is to go into potentially dangerous situations to conduct field audits and occasionally to conduct seizures.
Imagine, if you will, the beauty of rural North Dakota. We have a gentleman here who runs an exotic zoo in his fortified complex.
He is nine years delinquent on his taxes. He also files them sporadically and irregularly. The lien was filed. He did not respond. The time has come to pay the piper.
We cannot seize his house, as it is his only residence, but I’ve already arranged for potential buyers to take his exotic animals.
The first problem is that we don’t actually have his address, just a post office box. This isn’t actually an insurmountable problem. We go to the post office in the town closest to him and ask where he actually lives.
They give us fairly precise directions, using a number of local landmarks, for how to get onto his property through the correct access road. They also give us a warning: this man shoots first and asks later.
I call up the big guns: the armed agents of the treasury, the Secret Service. We roll up on his property in a big-ol’ armored truck. Sure enough, shots ring out. He’s probably added firearms charges to his ordeal, but that’s not my problem. I simply record the fact and move on.
It takes some tense communication over a megaphone and text messaging him pictures of our badges, but eventually, he agrees to let us onto his property.
His next demand is that we leave our guns behind. I patiently explain to him that, as he’s armed and his whole clan also looks to be armed, I’m not leaving my guns behind. Imagine a 5’4″ tall woman staring down a 5’10” man with military tattoos and a wildman beard in the crisp clean North Dakota air. Eventually, he agrees to let us inside.
He sits us down at the table, and his wife makes some tea.
Client: “So, what are you here about?”
Me: “I need to see the animals.”
He looks at me like I’ve grown a second head, but he eventually agrees to lead me to the animals. He takes me downstairs to a series of underground cages full of exotic and dangerous animals.
I take pictures of them, I verify their status, and I have the veterinarian I brought along with me do an assessment of each animal’s health. They’re all in reasonable shape but ornery and somewhat underfed. There are no major injuries nor signs of major neglect.
Client: “So, what is this about?”
Me: “We’re taking your animals to pay your back taxes.”
Client: “Hah. You can’t do that. You won’t be able to find buyers before the statute of limitations runs out. We’ve played this game before; you’re just gonna hold them for a couple of months and give them back to me.”
Me: “I already have a buyer.”
Client: “You do not.”
Me: “I do. If you pay us what you owe us now, we won’t seize your animals.”
Client: “I’m calling your bluff.”
Me: “Fine.”
I made the phone call, and then we sat and waited. The animal transports were waiting in the nearest small town, where we had come from. While we waited, we sipped at the tea.
One of the family members called out.
Nephew: “Uncle!”
Client: “Yeah, boy?”
Nephew: “There are more people at the gates. A whole lot of them.”
Client: “What?”
Nephew: “They’ve brought animal transport vehicles. The Treasury people aren’t letting us shoot at ’em. What should we do?”
Me: “Let them in.”
We held the auction right there, in his catacombs, in front of his face, selling his animals one by one. With each sale, he looked more and more dejected. About four animals in, he started crying. By the tenth, it had turned into ugly crying. By the end, all he could do was rock back and forth moaning the names of his animals.
He still owed us a great deal of money, but this was probably all we could recover from him. As a small kindness, I notated in his file to cancel the remaining debt.
Then, we left.
