Federal Taxes

I AM DOING a Happy Dance, now that the city of Philadelphia has (grudgingly?) decided to collect back taxes from its ne'er-do-well employees. Better late than never. Before the storm broke, about 2,000 city workers and their spouses owed the city about $5 million. About 23,000 people work for the city, so that is a very large number of deadbeats. Once this scandal hit the papers, about 100 deadbeats scrambled to pay in full, another 425 signed up for a payment schedule, but even more didn't . They froze like a chameleon on a branch, hoping that the city python wouldn't find them.

A Gloucester County tax preparer was sentenced by a federal judge yesterday to seven years in prison and ordered to pay $216,000 in restitution for filing false tax returns. Neyembo Mikanda, 48, with addresses in Williamstown and Wilmington, was convicted last year on 26 counts, including the preparation of false income-tax returns for clients and corporate returns for his own companies. U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman also ordered three years of supervision after Mikanda's prison release, and ordered him never to work in the tax-preparation field again.

Mayor Nutter released the names of the city's top-50 business-tax delinquents yesterday, hoping to shame them into paying the $27 million they owe. And if shame is not enough, the sheriff's department will begin seizing assets, Nutter said. "We are sending the sheriff out to soon come and get our stuff," the mayor said at a City Hall news conference. He added: "If you live in Philadelphia, work in Philadelphia, do business in Philadelphia . . . but you are not paying your taxes in return, we will go after you. " Among the biggest tax delinquents, according to the city, are former restaurateur Neil Stein, who was jailed for 10 months for tax evasion and owes $1.3 million, and T. Milton Street Sr., the older brother of former Mayor John F. Street, who is serving a 30-month prison term for failing to pay federal taxes on nearly $3 million in income.

President Bush said yesterday that he was troubled by rising gasoline prices and that he would take a look at proposals to relieve them. But he warned that there was no quick fix. "It's been a while in the making, and it's going to be a while that we solve the problem," Bush said in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America. "We're too dependent on foreign oil, and we need to be exploring more at home. " Also yesterday, a White House spokesman said Bush would raise concerns about high oil prices when he visited Saudi Arabia next week.

MOUNT LAUREL - For gay couples, the April 15 tax filing deadline can be a reminder of the disparities they face, even in a nation that is becoming more accepting of same-sex couples. Gay couples often pay higher taxes because they don't get the federal tax benefits that go with marriage. And for couples in state-sanctioned domestic partnerships, civil unions or same-sex marriages, filing federal income taxes can involve doing three sets of paperwork instead of one. "It's a significant financial disability," said Beth Asaro, who last year entered into one of New Jersey's first legally recognized civil unions.

If recent federal tax returns for the three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for the First District Pennsylvania Senate seat reveal anything, it is that their incomes and the relative sizes of their campaign war chests fall in the same order. Union leader John J. Dougherty has the biggest income - and the most deductions - followed by lawyer Larry Farnese and grassroots activist Anne Dicker, who has filed her taxes for the last two years using an EZ form. Although the three candidates have not been required to file campaign reports yet this year, there is general agreement that Dougherty has raised the most money, trailed at a distance by Farnese and Dicker.

A federal judge yesterday sentenced Republican lobbyist Robert Stears to 27 months in prison for defrauding the Burlington County Bridge Commission of between $93,000 and $693,000 and failing to pay federal taxes for six years. Pleading for leniency, the 53-year-old Stears said he was "sucked into a corrupt group of people. " Stears, who is cooperating with the government in its continuing criminal investigation, said the corruption "continues to this day. " Stears, of East Hampton, N.Y., laid out the fraud scheme in federal court, saying he would charge the commission about $4,000 a month and steal half of it. Then, he would take half of the stolen money, he said, and contribute it to Republican causes, mostly in Burlington County.

Four Pennsylvania men were among 11 indicted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for allegedly defrauding the Internal Revenue Service of more than $10 million. The suspects were part of Commonwealth Trust Co., which federal prosecutors say allegedly sold false trusts to clients, allowing them to transfer their assets and income into various entities and enabling them to dodge federal taxes. "It's just a tax-evasion scheme. That's all these things are," said Peter Alvarado, the IRS special-agent-in-charge in Philadelphia.

Here are the views of the major-party candidates on the ballot Nov. 7 for Pennsylvania's Second and Sixth District House seats. They responded to an Inquirer questionnaire. One candidate, Michael M. Gessner, did not respond. The questions: IRAQ: What policy changes would you like to see made in the U.S.-led war on terror as it is being fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, and here in the United States? TAXES: What changes should be made in America's taxing and spending policies to reduce the federal deficit?

With oil company profits soaring and consumer anger mounting over high gasoline prices, politicians in Washington are talking again about a windfall-profits tax. It wasn't really successful the last time it was tried - in the 1980s - but even so, the United States is hardly the only country that's weighing the move. Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nigeria and others are scrambling to seize some of the oil sector's record earnings through new taxes on production, exports or profits.