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<H1><FONT face="Times New Roman">Open letter to Tom Trail:</FONT></H1>
<DIV>Please read today’s editorial from the Tribune (reprinted below) I
hope you are as disgusted as I am with this commission....</DIV>
<DIV>What is going to happen to the Idaho Tax Commission this year? Will
the Republican Party allow this nest of cronyism and favoritism to fester or
will the party clean it up?</DIV>
<DIV>What are you proposing to solve this problem?</DIV>
<DIV>BL</DIV>
<H1><FONT
face="Times New Roman">----------------------------------------------------------------------</FONT></H1>
<H1><FONT face="Times New Roman">Dissecting Idaho's metastasizing tax
scandal</FONT></H1>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">By [author]Marty Trillhaase [/author]of the[org]
Tribune[/org]<BR>January 5, 2011</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Idaho's Tax Commission follows two fundamental
rules:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">l It plays no favorites. Mess with that and you
undermine the fragile fabric of collections. With few exceptions, people
voluntarily pay taxes. They do so under the presumption that everyone is treated
equally.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">l What you tell the tax man is your business.
That's Tax Collection 101 for a clerk, a field agent or the four gubernatorial
appointees running the tax commission. Breach confidentiality and you will face
a felony conviction, a $5,000 fine, five years in prison and a two-year ban on
holding public office.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Commission chairman Royce Chigbrow now stands
accused of shredding both standards. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Relying on e-mails and documents collected in
another investigation, The Associated Press has pieced together this
narrative.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">If you're on Chigbrow's good side, you get a
break.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Last year, Chigbrow's son, Cordell Chigbrow -
who runs the family's accounting firm - requested a client owing $50,000 in back
taxes be allowed to take 10 years to repay. Over staff objections, the
commission granted the request. Three years earlier, Cordell Chigbrow asked his
dad if client penalties in the amount of $931.20 and $644.04 could be waived.
The penalties were waived.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">And if you're on Chigbrow's bad side - or at
least antagonizing one of his friends - you get stomped on. In this case, Benton
(Skip) Hofferber - a former political contributor to Chigbrow's unsuccessful
2006 bid for state controller - was fighting his former employer, Boise Food
Services. Chigbrow summoned Tax Commission staff to his office and in
Hofferber's presence asked for tax data about the company. So much for
respecting Boise Food Service's confidentiality. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Elsewhere, the AP reported Chigbrow ordered a
forced collection of Boise Food Service's assets, accepted the company's cashier
checks, inappropriately asked the checks not be cashed despite a law to the
contrary and then blocked a refund owed to BFS.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">As poorly as this reflects on Chigbrow - and the
political ally who appointed him, Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter - it also taints the
entire tax commission.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">For more than two years, a steadily growing
cadre of tax auditors working in the specialized field of resolving disputes
with big companies has been insisting that the tax commission cuts sweetheart
deals with those firms.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Other than the large number of auditors involved
- about a third of the people who have done this work during the past 25 years -
and the courage it took for them to go public against their past and, in some
cases, current employers, there's not much to go on. Because they are bound to
respect the confidentiality of the taxpayers, critics can't provide specifics.
The tax commission can't prove whether these tax settlements wound up saving the
state money.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Chigbrow's ethical, professional and possibly
legal lapses change that equation. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">It may be a leap to say someone who processes
pleas for leniency for his son's clients or sides with a friend in another
company's tax dispute would look the other way while a big taxpayer evaded his
obligation to the state. It may be unfair to taint the entire four-member
commission based on the allegations now swirling around its chairman.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">But when people are denied a clear view of any
situation, they connect what few dots they see.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Presumably, Chigbrow's case will resolve itself
- either in the courts or in the court of public opinion.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">But this scandal is metastasizing into the
entire tax commission. What comes next should be obvious - a full, fair and open
examination of those tax settlements. Republicans loathe the idea because it's
coming from the left. Former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Bob Huntley, state Rep.
Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, and former tax commission auditor Stan Howland want
Otter and the Legislature to launch a five-member probe.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">The longer Otter and lawmakers wait, the more
they'll regret it. - M.T.</FONT></P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>