They published my letter in the paper today

[gspsonny03]

Fabs:

Don't get me wrong. I don't think this is because or due to only Lawyers. As I said in my prior post, this is a problem created by us as a society. From you and me ordinary joe-blow all the way up to and including government. We have put up with and tolerated it for so long, that until something changes it's going to happen. The fact that someone can buy an expensive lawyer and the other guy can't will never change. You will always have the O.J. (dream team) going up against otherwise inept lawyers.
That case was a good example. Look at the judge, the L.E., the media and everyone else involved. If O.J. didn't have a stacked deck in his favor, I'll put up with you. That's not to say that the state didn't put up a good trial, because I think they did. They just wasn't as good as the defense.
My only argument with what you had said earlier was, you said it's the judges, and I don't agree with that. I think it's the "judicial system" as a whole.

[fabsroman]

GSP,

It is up to the judges to give out the sentence. That is what I meant by it. It is the prosecutor's job to prosecute the case and it is the defense attorney's job to defend his/her client. In a perfect world, everybody would do their jobs and the guilty would go to jail for the correct amount of time and the innocent would go free. Then again, in my utopia we wouldn't have crime to begin with.

Val,

When I said minimum sentences, I meant in years. If the legislature were to pass a law that said a sex offender MUST serve 10 years for the first conviction and 20 years for the second conviction without parole or time off for good behavior, then the judge would have no option.


Slim-Zippy,

I couldn't agree with you more. Just in case you guys don't yet know this, I am also a CPA and I prepare tax returns and know a little about tax law. Tonight, I went to a client's house to review her tax information. I have been helping her with the legal aspect for starting her own day spa and she wanted me to set up the accounting system too when she opened the doors. As a result, she wanted me to do her tax return for this year. Well, I looked at 2002 and 2003, and those returns were a mess. In the first place, her employer was improperly treating her as a 1099 independent contractor so that it could avoid its 7.65% of SE taxes for FICA and Medicare (GREED). In 2002 she grossed $50,000 and in 2003 she grossed $65,000. Her old CPA that prepared her 2002 and 2003 returns had business gifts given out of $2,000 and $3,600 for the respective tax returns. Lat I checked, the gift limit was somewhere around $50 per person. In 2002 he had a deduction for machinery for $10,000. When I asked her what machinery she owned, she said none. He had another $2,800 deduction for machinery in 2003. The charitable contributions were around $1,000 for each year, but I could swallow those. He also had her deducting business mileage for commuting to and from her employer/single job site which isn't allowed and I think there was a meals and entertainment expense on her 2003 tax return in the amount of $3,700. I asked her is she took out her clients for lunch or dinner and her response was no. For 2004, she wanted to claim a $20,000 charitable deduction for 20 bags of closes that she donated and I told her no way. That was early in the interview. At the end of it all, I decided not to prepare her return and I recommended that she take it back to the old CPA so that he could prepare it. Talk about GREED. That CPA was signing off on a fraudulent return and possibly getting his client into some serious trouble, all for a $250 preparation fee. I stood to bill about $400 on that return, but turned it away just because it couldn't pass the smell test with me, which all CPA's are subject to. I think it is more properly worded as healthy discretion or something to that effect. GREED.

What really pisses me off is that her fiance is a police officer and he was complaining about his salary. I felt like telling him that the county couldn't afford to pay him anything more because way too many people were cheating on their tax returns. GREED.

Another client last week that I do legal, tax, and bookkeeping for, brought me his grocery bill from Costco and tried to tell me that he was buying all the stuff for his employees. However, they don't even have toilet paper in the bathroom and the kitchen is bone dry. GREED.

Quite honestly, I think the IRS should audit every damn Schedule C/business return out there. Hell, I would even be happy with 50% and what would make me even happier is if the penalties are doubled for returns prepared by CPA's and the CPA is responsible for half. What I love is the clients that say they had no clue what their CPA was doing or that he was being creative, and then the CPA says that he was relying on the information from the client. GREED. On top of that, I think CPA's should lose their license after they have been cited for 10 fraudulent returns. These dishonest guys make it tough for me to earn an honest living and I will not stoop to their level.

I was going to post this as my own pet peeve, and just might do so anyway.