Walking Back The Cat -- III

Taxes are serious business, legally and morally. Employers are required to send IRS and state authorities quarterly payments for income tax withholding, as well as federal social security payments, where these apply. It's worth stressing that this money, while it is Caesar's, is Caesar's paid by the employees themselves, and thus it belongs to them. If an employer doesn't forward the withholding to Caesar, even if it's been withheld. the employee is still responsible for paying Caesar, and in such cases must often pay the same tax twice. Thus, not to forward withholding is stealing, not from the government (although the government is entitled to the money), but from the employees themselves. Failure to pay employees their just wages is one of the sins that cry out to heaven.

When I became "probationary acting interim treasurer", the quarterly tax withholding and social security payments were at the front of my mind, and they stayed there until Mr Kang engineered my removal from the position, as Mr Clark discussed in his statement. This was a frustrating matter to deal with, because I could find no reference in the parish treasurer's office to previous payments -- no forms, no copies of prior payment submissions, nothing. As far back as I could check, I found no copies of paid checks to the IRS in bank statements.

Part of the problem was that Ms Akan did her work as parish treasurer from her home, and when she resigned, she didn't return applicable paperwork to the parish. The problem was actually bigger than that, since the amounts to be withheld, and the way they're calculated, are constantly changing. I could see that it was going to take time to figure out where the parish stood, but I decided it would be highly prudent to end all the potential problems by hiring a payroll service. This would ensure several things: the deductions and payments would be properly calculated. The payments would be made on time. The payments wouldn't depend on whether or not parish volunteers were competent, dependable, or indisposed. Best of all, the fees charged by payroll services were reasonable, and the parish could afford them. And once we hired an agency, I could use them to help work out the missing payment information from 2011 and resolve any discrepancies.

I made a completed-staff-work recommendation to review a short list of candidates and select a payroll service to the vestry at my first meeting with them as treasurer. They approved the recommendation. (I assume Mr Kang and some others were nervous, but they had no choice but to vote in favor). In the following weeks, I looked at several agencies and identified the one that had the best church payroll experience and suited our other needs. In the vestry meeting the following month, I presented a recommendation that the parish engage this service. Again, I assume several members were nervous, but like ACA bishops, they voted for whatever would make them look good.

Among those who've looked at the parish's 2011 payroll withholding situation, of course, the actual circumstance appears to have been that no payments due the IRS were paid at all during that year. According to the timeline at the Freedom for St Mary site, a payment of about $800 was due the IRS for quarterly withholding on January 31 of that year, and it was not made. We know it was not made, because the IRS threatened to seize the parish a year later for not receiving it. The money was definitely in the bank. Making the payment was Ms Akan's responsibility. She did not make this nor any subsequent quarterly withholding payments that were due the IRS in 2011.

Naturally, I didn't know the whole story then, but I was worried enough about what I didn't know that I pursued hiring a payroll service for the parish as my first priority. I can see no other reason for Mr Kang engineering my removal as "probationary acting interim treasurer" at the December 11, 2011 vestry meeting. A payroll service would simply have eliminated the biggest pretext, "financial irregularities", for challenging Fr Kelley. (It might also, of course, have shed unwanted light on the payments that hadn't been made.) In the general confusion surrounding the December 10 letter to Fr Kelley and then-Bp Moyer's refusal to inhibit him, Mr Kang was able to get the vestry to change its mind and decide that, although I would have been with the parish for a year and thus fully qualified to serve as treasurer as of January 1, 2012, as of December 11, I should no longer be "probationary acting interim treasurer". The vestry agreed, perhaps as part of an implicit deal that would save Fr Kelley in his own position, at least for a while. (The dissidents, by Patrick Omeirs's account, were already talking to Stephen Strawn of the ACA.)

A dissident vestry member phoned me a few days later. I shouldn't take it personally, he said. It had nothing to do with me. It was just that I was seen as a "Kelley puppet". The vestry made no further move to hire the payroll service it had voted to engage.