В Гранд-Трейверс-Сити казначейство признало вину в уплате налогов и обязано выплатить IRS более $200 000

TRAVERSE CITY- Grand Traverse County commissioners placed Treasurer Jamie Callahan under oath at the board’s Sept. 2 meeting before questioning him for nearly 45 minutes on almost $200,000 in Internal Revenue Service penalties tied to missed payroll tax payments, a hearing that ended with Callahan acknowledging his office was at fault in every case commissioners raised. Vice Chair T.J. Andrews led the questioning, working through four separate IRS penalty cases dating back to the second quarter of 2025. One, a more than $52,000 penalty for late fourth-quarter 2025 payments, has since been waived. The other three remain open. Andrews found gaps in Callahan’s own report early on, noting that pages were missing from two of the four IRS notices included in his packet. “Looks like whoever ran this through the scanner only printed the front end of the notices,” Andrews said. “So we’re missing every other page.” Two of the four cases trace back to payments the county believed had gone through and hadn’t. A payment near $181,000 due in June 2025 and a second, near $291,000, due the following month were both missed, according to Callahan’s testimony, and both were caught by the finance department during reconciliation work rather than by the treasurer’s office itself. “Would you agree that one of the problems is that by getting behind on reconciliation, you are unable to see that $181,000 payment to the IRS did not go through?” Andrews asked. Callahan agreed. By the close of questioning, Andrews asked Callahan directly whether the IRS had made a mistake in any of the four cases. “You haven’t identified a single item where the IRS made a mistake,” Andrews said. “Your office made the mistake, right?” “As far as I can tell,” Callahan said. “Yes.” Callahan told commissioners staffing shortages and an office relocation contributed to the delays, and said he was not aware whether his office carries insurance or a bond covering the county in the event of errors. Commissioners voted to receive and file Callahan’s report, but stopped short of calling it complete. “I would like to receive and file this report, but I’m not convinced it’s accurate, complete or satisfactory,” Andrews said in making the motion, which passed unanimously. Commissioners also voted unanimously to direct county civil counsel Matt Nordfjord to work with Finance Director Dean Bott and other administrative staff on what a performance bond requirement would involve, and separately directed administration to determine the county’s full outstanding balance with the IRS and begin paying it down to stop further interest from accruing. Callahan said his office has identified a previously unused option for resolving the dispute: an in-person appointment with the IRS’s Traverse City office. “This local IRS office and local number is something that we recently came across as an option,” Callahan said. “We are making that call today.”