IRS case offers glimpse into Gypsy world
Portland clan - A judge must decide whether millions seized from a patriarch is his family's "sacred money" or an attempt to avoid taxes
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Oregonian
BRYAN DENSON
Internal Revenue Service agents carted off $2.7 million in cash from the patriarch of a Portland Gypsy clan last summer, leaving a federal judge to deliberate this month on who owns it.
Agents rummaged for two days through the home and safe-deposit boxes of Bobbie Ephrem, a 49-year-old auto dealer. Agents turned up clumps of currency in a makeup bag, jackets, purses, socks, wallets, bank sacks, luggage and a milk carton hidden under attic floorboards.
What followed was a drama pitting three of the world's most reviled professions -- tax collectors, lawyers and used-car salesmen -- in a dust-up over the dough. The backdrop for the piece is a mysterious cash-on-the-barrelhead society of Gypsies that operates under the radar of most Portlanders.
After seizing Ephrem's cash, the IRS issued him a rare "tax jeopardy assessment" that accused him of not filing income taxes for nine years. The IRS calculated that he owed taxes, penalties and interest totaling nearly $8.5 million.
Ephrem sued the federal government, saying the IRS stole his family fortune, including more than $1 million in inheritance money -- "sacred money," he called it -- owed to him, his three brothers and a nephew.
Ephrem's lawyers argued for two days before U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman, saying their client's huge stores of cash prove only that he was the keeper of his family's finances, and there's no law against that.
An Ephrem attorney, Marc Blackman, steered testimony toward the historic persecution of Gypsies, a people frequently stereotyped as flimflammers, pickpockets and fortune tellers.
Was the money seized from Ephrem the misbegotten fruits of a currency-hoarding tax dodger or the sacred savings of an extended Gypsy family? Or was it perhaps a bit of both?
Mosman must decide.
Gypsy roots
Ephrem is the workaholic head of a large family, part of a vast, cloistered community of American Gypsies who call themselves Roma.
(MORE)
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Oregonian
BRYAN DENSON
Internal Revenue Service agents carted off $2.7 million in cash from the patriarch of a Portland Gypsy clan last summer, leaving a federal judge to deliberate this month on who owns it.
Agents rummaged for two days through the home and safe-deposit boxes of Bobbie Ephrem, a 49-year-old auto dealer. Agents turned up clumps of currency in a makeup bag, jackets, purses, socks, wallets, bank sacks, luggage and a milk carton hidden under attic floorboards.
What followed was a drama pitting three of the world's most reviled professions -- tax collectors, lawyers and used-car salesmen -- in a dust-up over the dough. The backdrop for the piece is a mysterious cash-on-the-barrelhead society of Gypsies that operates under the radar of most Portlanders.
After seizing Ephrem's cash, the IRS issued him a rare "tax jeopardy assessment" that accused him of not filing income taxes for nine years. The IRS calculated that he owed taxes, penalties and interest totaling nearly $8.5 million.
Ephrem sued the federal government, saying the IRS stole his family fortune, including more than $1 million in inheritance money -- "sacred money," he called it -- owed to him, his three brothers and a nephew.
Ephrem's lawyers argued for two days before U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman, saying their client's huge stores of cash prove only that he was the keeper of his family's finances, and there's no law against that.
An Ephrem attorney, Marc Blackman, steered testimony toward the historic persecution of Gypsies, a people frequently stereotyped as flimflammers, pickpockets and fortune tellers.
Was the money seized from Ephrem the misbegotten fruits of a currency-hoarding tax dodger or the sacred savings of an extended Gypsy family? Or was it perhaps a bit of both?
Mosman must decide.
Gypsy roots
Ephrem is the workaholic head of a large family, part of a vast, cloistered community of American Gypsies who call themselves Roma.
(MORE)
Labels: Gypsy, Money, United States. Taxes
posted by Allie @ 4:52 PM
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