Dear Source:
I am appalled Senator Hill has gone to the recycle bin to employ another failed government official to be paid by our taxpayer dollars. Louis Willis was the sole object of a scathing audit by our IG and the Department of the Interior reported on January 2008. After asking for Police Commissioner McCall to resign 'for not doing his job', Hill hires someone who clearly did not do his job while being Director of the IRB for years!
According to Hill's office, while director, 'Willis showed himself to be courageous in making positive changes; he saw the need for reforms and implemented them until his departure in 2006'.
During Willis' tenure, the audit revealed $253 million in uncollected taxes. Of that, $128 million can never be recovered because some are so old. One contractor alone owed $960,190 in withholding taxes from March 2002 through April 2007. Failure to pay withholding taxes can lead to imprisonment. In another instance, an applicant to Licensing and Consumer Affairs owed $3.5 million in unpaid gross receipts taxes, and was still given a license to do business in the VI! Willis issued 31 favorable tax clearance letters to a business person who owns 31 gas stations and convenient stores on STX who owed $1.75 million in taxes! GVI employees were allowed to skate on earnings of $83 million. No filings were received nor were notices sent for collection thereof. I could go on and on of the lack of over site Willis demonstrated during his tenure as IRB Director.
Under Willis IRB also ineffectively used revenue officers by allocating them other time-consuming duties, such as researching the validity of taxpayer delinquencies, instead of using the officers solely for enforcement of collections of non-filers. All of this is in the audit. Nothing was ever done to Willis though he should be accountable for his lack of doing his job, costing the taxpayers millions in uncollected revenue never to be recovered.
You could have found a better Legislative Director that did not have such a deplorable track record, Senator Hill. It says a lot about your judgement in being a representative of 'the people'.
Jill Lange
Christiansted, St. Croix
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