(10/28) HOTL Hour 1

Handel on the Law, Marginal Legal Advice.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is handle on the law,marginal legal advice where I tell you you
have absolutely no case. This isnot necessarily a legal case. But this
is what's going on on the federalgovernment level, and that the IRS is
planning to crack down on sixteen hundredmillionaires to collect millions, hundreds of millions

(00:25):
of dollars in back taxes. Now, the reason I bring this up is
the IRS for years have been underfunded. The number of audits have been dropping,
particularly business audits. And one ofthe things about the IRS is it
is buoy net revenue to the USgovernment. Now, granted, it doesn't
provide services, it doesn't manufacture,it isn't an entitlement program where it helps

(00:52):
people with food stamps or housing orbuys military equipment. Nothing. All it
does is collect money on behalf ofthe government and whatever it takes to collect
money off of space certainly IRS agents, examiners, management, on and on
and on. I mean, thepoint is that the IRS makes money for

(01:15):
the government, and I'd read thatit's a three for one. For every
dollar that's spent on the IRS,they collect three dollars, And for years
they have left so much money onthe table. So now we go into
the realm of politics, and Idon't quite understand this. Conservatives don't want
to fund the IRS. Liberals wantto fund the IRS. Liberals, but

(01:46):
here's the difference. Liberals like governmentinvolved. Conservatives don't like government involved.
They want to leave it alone.And so underfunding the IRS means that government
is less and less involved. Butthere ain't any money. I just I
don't understand why the IRS wouldn't befully funded, and I guess politically it

(02:12):
just doesn't work. I shake myhead, I really do. I mean,
I pay my taxes, always have. I've never missed a year of
taxes. Well, I mean mostof us haven't file every year. Now.
Granted, I file October fourteenth becauseI extend, extend to extend,
extend, so I don't I takethe last stay that I can possibly pay
taxes. But hey, I mean, you know, I don't have a

(02:36):
business in which I'm able to notpay taxes or somehow. And we're not
talking about simply avoiding taxes here.I mean this is evading taxes. There's
a big difference. Avoiding taxes isone thing perfectly legal, and the more
money you have, the more thebetter an account you can hire and you
find what are loopholes that's in quotes, by the way, those are exceptions

(03:00):
under the law that people can usenow evading taxes. It is things like
you don't declare your income tax theamount of money that you make. That's
a problem. That's a big one. If you deduct and it is even
close to a legitimate deduction, evenif the IRS going to say no,
the only thing you're going to hitwith is the tax on it and the

(03:22):
penalties and the interest. You're notgoing to prison you avoid, you evade
taxes. It becomes very problematic.All right, guys, let's do it.
Let's take some phone calls, startingwith Ruben, Hi, Ruben,
welcome to handle on the law bill. I'm supposed to go into Israel in
a couple of days. They said, no way, We're not going,

(03:45):
of course, but they won't givethem the money. They just want to
push it back for another is theywho is they? The travel agency?
Well wait, wait, wait wait, did travel agency? Why would they
pay the money? Why would thetravel agency write a check? No,
they have all my money already.The travel agency doesn't have your money.
Did you buy the airline ticket already? The airline. They contracted the airline.

(04:10):
It's a national airline. I don'twant to say the name. Yeah,
but I know you know. Buthere's the question. Hold on a
minute. The travel agency isn't keepingthe money they you're paying them to pay
the carrier. It's the airline justgetting the money and the hotels, et

(04:30):
cetera, et cetera. I enteredsaying, but the travel agency doesn't get
the money for the hotel. You'repaying for the hotels. It's not like
you pay a travel agency eight thousanddollars and nobody else is paid. They
just made eight thousand dollars on you. It doesn't work that way. So
bottom line is, have you attemptedto contact the airline? Right? The
airline is a national airline. Idon't care. Have you contacted the airline

(04:55):
right? They're still flying. They'rea military aircraft at this time. Okay,
they wait a second. You whoa, whoa, whoa, Oh,
because they've been chartered. I don'tget it. Okay, it's not a
military airline. You're getting a littleconfused here. It's an It is a
domestic airline that's been chartered. Youcan tell me the name of the airline.
I don't care. Okay, it'sl L Okay. L ALL is

(05:17):
not a military air It's not amilitary it's the National Airline of Israel.
Okay uh. And it's a commercialairline, and they have your money.
It's the airline that has your money. The travel agency isn't gonna write a
check because they don't have it,you know. It's it's the airline you're
going after, in the hotels thatyou've prepaid everything. You know why I

(05:40):
know all this because it just happenedto me. I had to handle.
I had to cancel my Israeli tirripright now. And guess what airline I
booked? L ALL. So nowthat you have everything confused, what's your
question? I just want to no, I understand, and then let's go

(06:02):
back. Have you contacted l ALL? No? I have not. Okay,
You've got to do that. Yourtravel agency probably isn't going to help
a whole lot. Okay, Soyou know what Okay, Okay, let
me let me tell you. Okay, have you contacted any of the hotels?
No, I don't know yet.Okay, Well they'll be the airline.
I mean, the travel agent hasto tell you that now going after

(06:25):
the travel agency is you can tryand hopefully they do it on your behalf.
I happen to have a travel agency. I've known this woman for many,
many years. She is calling theairline. She is, by the
way, I'm getting a refund onthe airline part of it. So call

(06:46):
the travel If the travel agency won'thelp, you, call the airline and
see what you can do directly.And I think right now all is refunding.
Hey, Bill, you're up,welcome to handle on the law.
Yes, yes, I'm a kindof minium owner. And I had a
problem in my kitchen sink with wateroverflowing on the floor in my kitchen and

(07:10):
hall. The water came from anotherapartment and it did damage well, not
immediately, but as would drive up, it started to separate and buckle in
places, and the homeowner association says, I have to pay for it.
Yeah, well why would why would? Why would the homeowner association be responsible?

(07:34):
Because it came from a coming pipe? Ah? Okay, so it
came from a car in the wall. Okay, all right, that was
questioning. You came up out ofthe sink. Well wait, if you're
coming up from out of the holdon you share a sink pipe that comes
up, that's a common sink pipe. It could be. I mean you're

(07:55):
talking about the pipe that goes downbetween you and your neighbor. This is
a high rise apartment. Okay,do you know specifically? Okay? Uh,
do you know specifically which neighbor isit? You're upstairs neighbors your neighbor
on the side of you. What'swell, you can't say. It's got

(08:16):
to be. It's got to be. Let me see you you have you
have a rent homeowner's policy. Youhave a policy, a homeowner's policy.
Oh oh oh oh yeah, okay, okay, you have a homeowner's policy
because everybody does. Unless you're veryrich and you don't owe anything on your

(08:37):
home and you don't care. Iwould go against your own insurance company and
have them help you out and thensay, hey, the other side,
no one's paying for it, andI need help on my homeowner's policy.
So then they work it out andthey're very good at that sort of thing.
Oh okay, yeah, try that. Try that. Okay, that's
before anything, because you don't wantto go to at this point, you

(08:58):
don't want to go all claims.You have to establish common area that they're
responsible, and you bring in theccnrs and they will figure out some little
tiny discrepancy or some little exclusion,because that's the way Hoa's work. It's
really really depressing. All right,Larry, Welcome to the show. Yes,

(09:18):
I ordered phone ordered a sixteen dollarsanimal carrier from Walmart. They sent
me to thirty two dollars Tech animalcarriers. I called them up. They
said I had to mail them back. Well, that's logistically impossible for me.

(09:39):
I have to walk three quarters ofa mile and take two buses to
do that. Yeah, do youthink they care? Nolly? I called
them up, like I said,and they said, well, follow the
fraud report. Was your debit cardcompany? I did that. I got
a letter back that my debit cardcompany did not to claim. Yeah.

(10:03):
Well, hang on a minute.Let me get this right, Larry.
You, uh, how much didyou spend? Well, a total of
sixty four dollars. Sixty four dollarsthat was for and that was for one
carrier. Correct, Well, no, that was for two carries that I
did not order. Okay, butyou what did you order? I ordered

(10:26):
a sixteen dollars animal carriage. Ohokay, you ordered a sixteen dollars carrier,
and you've got two carriers that areworth sixty four dollars or two worth
thirty dollars thirty two dollars each.Okay, and they were the wrong size,
yes, okay, And they're sayingreturn both of them at your expense?

(10:52):
Is that correct? Presumably not?Presumably? Have you wait, wait,
wait, wait, hold on aminute, have you talked to anybody
about this? Well? Yeah,I called Walmart Walmart? And what did
Walmart say? They should take himto the post office a mail bag?
Okay, so you bought them fromWalmart. They wouldn't let you walk into

(11:16):
a Walmart to exchange him, likeunder customer service, I phone order them.
It doesn't matter because it's still customerservice when you walk in. I
think, I don't know. Youknow, whenever I bought anything at Walmart,
whatever, I turned it in,okay, uh uh to go to
that Walmart, I have to takeyou. No, I understand that.

(11:39):
No, you know, I getthat. And and that's and they don't
care. Two big boxes. Yeah, they don't care. They don't care.
Well, I just returned I ordered, I ordered a pizza. I
just ordered a pizza oven that Ididn't like and I had to return it
right. I had to pay forthe return and it cost me like sixty

(12:01):
five or seventy dollars. I hadto suck it up well because it said,
uh, you know, it didn'tsay return prepaid. So I'm surprised.
Well, I'm not surprised because you'reprobably not. You're not at Amazon
Prime. Did you do it throughAmazon? No? Walmart directly? Oh,
I'm sorry, through Walmart directly?And have you you have you talked

(12:24):
to anybody at Walmart, like alike someone who was in management. I
called up on the online or thephone and told them that they sent me
the wrong okay, And they didn'tsay and they just said and they just
said return it at your expense,and uh, they are going to send

(12:46):
you the right one. Is thatwhat they said? They told me I
had the print out the label andtake them to the post office. I
don't know if it included post theywere gonna pay Well, I don't know.
I don't either. You have tofind out if it's printing out a
label, and then maybe I don'thave I don't have any way to get
them to the post on. Larry. That's but you understand that is that

(13:11):
is not their problem. Now I'mtaking their side for a moment. Uh,
what if I were to return it? I want to say, what
if I said, I don't haveany way of getting I'm walking, I
don't have a car, I can'tthere's no bus service, I don't have
any friends, I don't have enoughmoney, and they're gonna go, oh,
in that case, we're going totake care of you. Because everybody
can say that, Larry, that'sthe problem. Yeah, I asked them

(13:33):
to pick them up. Yeah,they don't do that. Of course they
don't do that. They don't dothat, not only and not only that.
There was no invoice or shipping,you know, shipping nothing. They
just shipped it to you with howdo they have your not they just shipped
you. The name was on thebox and there was nothing inside the box.

(13:58):
Okay, nothing nothing. Yeah.I don't know what even what to
say on that one. It's justtoo confusing for me. I just don't
get it other than he a mileand a half away and there's no bus
and there's no car and there's nocomputer. So I don't know what to
say. Uh, Max, Hello, Max? Hey? Uh? When

(14:20):
I call a business I record thephone call because they're saying that your phone
call may be recorded for quality assurance. Right, that could be taken as
they're giving me permission to record thephone call. In other words, no
no, no no no no nono no no no no no no.
When they say they they are recordingthe phone call, it is you giving
them permission to record them. Shouldn'tthey be saying shouldn't they be saying your

(14:43):
phone call might be recorded? Itdoesn't matter instead of may. It doesn't
matter because may is an operative ofgiven permission. May. Well, let
me tell you if if mike uhis the operative word uh, and they
want to their asses, they're goingto say it may be recorded. There

(15:03):
is no difference, Max, Imean, are you an English teacher?
But I speak English? Well,you know I speak English, and I
don't know the difference in terms ofit's legal import. Yes, So they
record it, and when they saythis call may be recorded, you have
given permission, uh to if yougo forward on it, you've given permission.
On the other hand, you turnaround and when you've talked to someone,

(15:26):
you tell that someone, by theway, I'm recording it on this
side. And at that point theygo forward or not. And sometime I've
done both and they said okay.And sometimes they say you don't have my
permission to record and boom, justhang up the phone. So I should
destroy my tapes they come and getme. I'm sorry, I should destroy

(15:48):
my tapes before they come and getme. Destroy the tap. Yeah,
why do you Why would you keepthe tapes having a conversation. You can't
do anything with them. We canuse the You're it's illegal to record someone
without permission, okay, all right. By the way, they when they
do say it drives me nuts whenthey say we are recording this call for

(16:12):
quality assurance. No, it isnot quality assurance. What they should be
is honest about it and say weare recording this call to cover our asses
in the event that litigation comes outof this phone call. Lauren, Hello,
Yes, Hi, Yeah. Iown a home in Massachusetts and my

(16:37):
brother lives there and he's very illand he may passed away soon. And
I want to know if he owesa lot of money on bills related to
the house, can I be heldresponsible because generally not, because if he
paid for those bills, he hadwhatever installed. And lets they have a

(17:00):
secured interest in the home. No, you're not responsible. You know.
For example, if I hire alet's say I hire a carpet guy.
I don't own the house. Mybrother owns the house, and I hire
a carpet installer, and the carinstaller puts in four thousand dollars worth of
carpeting and I put it on mycredit card. Or I have a deal
with the carpet installer and I payX dollars per month and I flake out

(17:22):
on. No, the homeowner isnot responsible for that. You're okay,
all right, that's that's a goodquestion too. It is okay, Mike,
Hello, Mike, welcome, Yes, miss turning ahead, Yes,
okay. So I've been working ina place for almost thirty years, and

(17:42):
now they've got a new payroll companydoing the payroll, and they said,
since you have direct deposit, youdon't get a pay stub. Okay,
And well, I mean I keepmy pay stubs. I mean I might
need them for a loan. Yeah, okay, I mean they let you

(18:03):
do it. I mean they're onthe website, right, I mean they
let you go in there and there'syour pay stub that you can see.
Correct, Yes, just print themout. Why don't you just print them
out and keep them. Why wouldn'tyou do that? Well, I just
thought that you had to give Nowthey don't have to know if they can.
Let me tell you, there area lot of places out there that

(18:23):
know that are paperless, that arepaper For example, I with my I
have a company. You can't applyyou have to do it through the internet.
You can't. You just can't apply. We're paperless. And when direct
deposit happens, we don't give outor mail out stubs. We don't.

(18:47):
It's perfectly fine. Yeah, justprint it, Mike, Just print it,
Just print it out and keep itin a file. Exactly what you
would do when you get your paystubs the mail. There's no difference.
It saves them forty five or fortyeight or whatever the hell a first class
stamp is because no one uses stampsanymore because everything is done via via the

(19:10):
internet. So yeah, yeah,they can go paperless. Riley, Hello
Riley, what can I do foryou? Laurnie Bill? Sorry, a
little bit of hippie let us here. How do I get out of jury
duty other than just throwing the lettersaway like I usually do? Well?
Okay, first of all, whenyou ignore dury duty. At some point

(19:33):
they can go after you. Andthere are judges that are just crazy.
You ignore dury duty. That's againstthe law, by the way, to
ignore jury jury duty. And thenthey'll send you another letter. Then they'll
send you another letter, and atsome point, clearly you're ignoring jury duty.
You can also say I moved becauseit's all first class mail. Okay,
So with that, assuming you wantto avoid jury duty like I did,

(19:57):
I've been called on jury duty twice, actually three times. I've been
called on jury duty twice. Iwent up and twice I simply told the
judge I was way too biased,which is impossible to do. Okay,
Yeah, they don't buy that.Yeah, they don't do that. They
don't care, Riley, they don'tcare. Really Yeah, I mean you

(20:19):
got La County, for example,these two million jurors a year. It's
insanity. Yeah, well there's notmuch. Well, that's our system.
Uh, you know, we trialby our peers, our peers being jury
duty. You know, it's uh, that's our government. So you can

(20:41):
argue, try to argue, youcan get out. I was able to
do it, and it's kind ofa fun story because it had to do
with a misdemeanor, a misdemeanor hitand run, which a Hispanic kid.
They were trying a Hispanic kid,and so anybody biased and people were saying,
am by and I literally stood upand go, your honor, I

(21:03):
am biased. And he said,okay, right, all right, and
then he hauled me in and no, I said, we should do this
in chambers, your honor. Hegoes, we can do this open court
right now. I said, no, your honor, We're going to do
this in chambers. So he camein with a stenographer and I said,
your honor, here is why Ishouldn't be on this jury because I am
convinced this kid is an illegal alienand I'm going to nail him just because

(21:29):
he is. I'm an officer ofthe court. I'm an officer of the
court as an attorney, and Ihave to maintain I've swore to maintain the
law, and it's I'm going tonail it. But it's just unfair to
him. Well, normally, judgesay no, but he said, but
what he did say is, misterHandel, Normally I would say no.

(21:51):
But I listened to your show andI believe what you're saying. I was
dismissed. But here is you getto call in when you want. You
can actually call the clerk and askfor the time. And what I did
is I asked for between Christmas andNew Year. The court is open,

(22:11):
but nobody holds a trial. Nobodyholds a trial, so you won't get
called in. But you can't getout of it. You really can't.
You can ignore it. You cantry. You can go there and argue
bias, which is not going tohelp. You can argue I have to
be at work, I have abusiness. I'm going to lose everything.
They don't care. My mother isdying right now and they don't care.

(22:37):
It's almost impossible that out. Well, yeah, I know it's hard.
It's hard. They're just making itmore and more difficult. Mary. Hello,
Mary, Welcome to handle on thelaw. Hi Bill, I'm calling
because my husband was named in thetrust with three other people and I'm not
sure how soon he should get acopy and if you deserves one and when,

(23:00):
well, I mean if he's namedin the trust, of course he
gets a copy. Uh. Anddoes he know who the trust he is?
Yes? He does, okay,and the trust he's been calling him
for six months and telling him things. But but I'm just wondering he should
be having a he should you said, and what does the trustee said to
say when he asked for a copyof the trust? Well, he just

(23:25):
says that it's in the lawyer's hands. Well, call the lawyer, exactly,
call the lawyer and go, hey, I'm a beneficiary under the trust.
I want to see what you havea right to do that, and
a lawyer. If they refuse toshow you, then, uh, then
you start writing letters. You geta lawyer, a lawyer letter to uh

(23:45):
to go against him. I don'tknow of a trustee that would not share
a trust, or at least thoseparts of the trusts that are relative to
that particular beneficiary. For example,I leave the beneficial here it is.
Let's say I leave my beneficiary twentypercent. It's none of that beneficiary's business

(24:06):
where the other eighty percent goes.But is that beneficiary entitled to see where
the twenty percent is? I thinkso. Or you get a contest,
you can test the damn thing.And if there's enough money involved. How
much money is involved, by theway, Marci or Mary Mary probably about
five hundred thousand, And it wasjust a band of friends and this man

(24:26):
never got married, and okay,and how many and how many and how
many are you when you talk abouthow many? How many beneficiaries? Four
four so each one hundred and aquarter, right, yeah, yeah for
her friend, yeah, I wouldstart talking to all of them and sort
of demand back or demand to seeit, because if the trust see says

(24:48):
no, I'm not going to showit to you. I'm simply going to
distribute the money and refuses to show. Then you know what, something's not
kosher in Denmark or wherever you live. If you live in Wyoming, some
things on kosher there. Either Thisis handle on the law