THE CASE OF “BAMBOOZLED BUS BOY”

Curtis was a bus boy at a local restaurant, and although he intellectually challenged, he was a very faithful employee, never missing a day at work. Shortly after the end of the year the restaurant went out of business leaving Curtis out of a job. Curtis came to see us when he didn’t get a W2 so he could file his tax return. He always had a lot taken out of his pay because he liked getting refunds from the Uncle Sam.

We discovered that the restaurant had never filed a report of earnings and withholdings during the year and the owners could not be located. So the IRS and Minnesota had no records of any withholdings for Curtis. He was crushed.

Curtis did, however, have a few of his pay stubs squirreled away locating 8 of the total of 26. From that scanty information we filed form 4582, “substitute wage and tax statement”, extrapolating as best we could to arrive at his total pay and withholdings, both the IRS and the State of Minnesota accepted these findings as they realized we, and Curtis, did the best we could in a bad situation and that Curtis should not be punished for others misdeeds.

Who says Uncle Sam and Goldy Gopher aren’t understanding souls.