Internal Revenue Service

San Franciscans Are Constantly Cheating on Taxes. You Know Who You Are

We all know (and enjoy) that sweet taste of taking something for nothing, but it always feels a little wrong. Now that Tax Day is over, let the shaming begin. According to the 2012 National Taxpayer Advocate, California has the highest number of tax cheats in the nation, with San Francisco ... More >>

Trojan Makes Taxes Pleasurable, Doles out Free Vibrators for Tax Day

If you're looking for a good reason to get your taxes done this year -- other than getting screwed by the IRS -- here's something that might stimulate you.On Friday April 12 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., Trojan will be handing out free vibrators at The Box in the  seedy heart of SOMA. Finally, a way ... More >>

Oaksterdam Raid: Journalist Is Only Person Charged One Year Later

Our friends over at SFist today posted a reminder that it's been one year since federal agents -- mostly the IRS, though DEA and US Marshals were on scene -- raided the campus of Oakland marijuana grow college Oaksterdam University and the offices and apartment of its founder, cannabis legalization ... More >>

Vegan Butterfingers, Election Night Get-Down, and Holiday Loaf News!

​ The big news this week is both Gardein and Trader Joe's have come out with vegan Thanksgiving "loafs" of sorts. You better make your pro and con lists now because you can get BOTH of these AND a Field Roast loaf! Or you totally can and be awesome. See Also: - Homeless Roosters, Singing Pigs, ... More >>

Cash Only Pot: Credit Cards No Longer Accepted at Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

High FICO score be damned: Your credit is no longer any good at California medical marijuana dispensaries, whose accounts with credit-card processors have been canceled, thanks to pressure from the federal government.Merchant services providers -- the intermediaries between retailers and credit card ... More >>

El Balazo Owners Sentenced to Prison for Hiring Illegal Immigrants

The Mexican food competition in this city is fierce. There are great burrito joints and margarita offerings in every direction. Perhaps Marino and Nicole Sandoval, owners of the El Balazo chain, were just wanting a little boost when they stiffed the feds on taxes and hired undocumented immigrants fo ... More >>

Oaksterdam University Goes Volunteer-Only, Future Uncertain

The federal Justice Department does not yet have Richard Lee's head. But in the wake of a multi-agency raid on Oaksterdam University, they have his business.The "cannabis college," Oakland's best known institution of higher learning -- sorry, Mills, but you don't teach people to grow weed -- is now ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Stay Open Despite Federal Deadline

On the day the federal government wished HopeNet to close, the operators of San Francisco's oldest licensed and taxpaying medical marijuana dispensary prepared accordingly: They grilled hot dogs."We made about 220," said Catherine Smith, whose Ninth Street medical cannabis dispensary is one of the n ... More >>

Fune Ya Japanese's IRS Problems, Why Criolla Kitchen Closed, and La Barca Shutters

The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco food scene. Fune Ya Japanese Restaurant is in hot water in with the IRS -- marking the third Richmond District restaurant in recent months to head to court. SFGate reports cash receipts in boxes marked "seasoned octo ... More >>

Tea Party Warrior: Report Medical Marijuana Clubs to the IRS and Get Rich

​For Paul Chabot, the War on Drugs is personal indeed: Before he became a Navy man, a campus cop, and a former National Drug Control Policy staffer, he was in drug rehab for alcohol and marijuana addiction himself -- at the young age of 12, according to his online bio.In his latest tactical maneuv ... More >>

Bowling For Chumps: How the Bowl System Robs U.S. Schools

Feds Try to Handcuff Bay Area Dispensaries

Campus California's Links to International Fugitive Amdi Petersen

IJamie SojaClothing is collected in Campus California's Bay Area dropoff boxes.​n this week's SF Weekly cover story I explore apparent links between clothes donation boxes sprouting throughout the Bay Area and a business empire reputedly run by a Danish fugitive. The story cites credible evidence ... More >>

Here Are San Francisco's Biggest Tax Debtors

Tax delinquency: an American tradition​Nobody likes paying taxes. Granted, not all of us are "angry" enough about them to don a tricorne hat and start ranting about the Nafta Superhighway and the Federal Reserve. But the chunk of money Uncle Sam takes out of your paycheck every two weeks -- not to ... More >>

Congressman Pete Stark Aims to Save Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Big Bucks

You've got a friend in high places​As if raids from gun-toting Drug Enforcement Agency agents weren't enough to make stoners paranoid, California's medical marijuana clubs can also be shut down real fast by the IRS. That's because the Internal Revenue Service has declared that California's legal m ... More >>

Blowing Smoke: Obama Promises One Thing, Does Another on Medical Marijuana

Bay Area Pot Clubs Audited as State Goes on Fiscal 'Witch Hunt'

Balancing the state budget with marijuana​It was big news for taxpayers and medical cannabis advocates alike when the Board of Equalization informed mega-dispensary Berkeley Patients Group that it owed some $6.4 million in back taxes. And now it appears that BPG's run-in with the taxman is not an ... More >>

Symphony Charges S.F. Library $480 Yearly, Despite $2.6M Annual Taxpayer Subsidy

Thanks for placing your overdue-book fines in my pocket​The San Francisco Symphony will receive $2.6 million in taxpayer subsidies during the current fiscal year. Nonetheless, it charges the San Francisco Public Library an additional $480 per year for dropping off old programs, the San Francisco c ... More >>

Wesley Snipes Tax Evasion Sentence Outrages Libertarian Party

Wesley Snipes: Tax protester and vampire hunter​The leader of the nation's Libertarian Party said today he's outraged that Wesley Snipes has been sentenced to three years in prison, citing it as an example of the IRS' unfair "selective enforcement," and of the fact evaders evade because "THE TAX I ... More >>

Two More Suspects Arrested in San Francisco IRS Shooting

Don't mess with the IRS...​Two more alleged muggers are under arrest in the unusual case of an armed IRS agent shooting down her purported attackers. In addition to the alleged robber hospitalized Thursday morning after taking a bullet to the torso, San Francisco Police announce they've now arrest ... More >>

IRS Agent Audits Mugger -- With Bullets

A mugger's got to know his limitations...​An alleged mugger learned the hard way that you don't mess with the IRS. At around midnight, an on-duty agent with the Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigation division was walking through the 100 block of Marlin Court. The agent was accosted by a ... More >>

How was IRS Agent Who Shot Alleged Mugger 'On Duty'?

Don't mess with the IRS...​The news that an on-duty IRS special agent shot an alleged mugger at around midnight this morning in Hunters Point was something of a head-scratcher. Sure, armed IRS special agents investigate money-laundering, fraud cases, and ponzi schemes. But how many ponzi schemes a ... More >>

Your E-Filed Taxes Saved IRS $195M (and Counting). But Post Office Not Thrilled.

​Yesterday we reported that nearly eight of every 10 tax forms received by the IRS by early April was sent electronically. This put members of the United States Postal Service in the position of another blue-uniformed figure with little to do: The Maytag repairman. With the late-evening Tax Night ... More >>

Warning, Procrastinator: Almost No Post Offices Open Until Midnight on Tax Day

He can't save you now, tax procrastinator...​IRS statistics reveal 80 percent of returns have been e-filed this year. In the good old days, folks who'd left their taxes until on or about April 15 could count on hordes of postal workers swarming the streets to grab the tax forms out of their hands ... More >>

Vile Poetry Hardly Worst Unwanted Detritus Stuffed in SF Weekly Box

Click on photo for a larger version​Those of you who read our print edition may have stumbled across the above poetry stuffed into SF Weekly's boxes of late. It turns out this was the "News Poem" of the day via a Web site called toylit.blogspot.com. On this site, one Khakjaan Wessington forbids an ... More >>

Charitable Front

Mysterious organizations in the Bay Area profess to be advocating for liberal causes. In truth, they appear to be part of a secretive group with a bizarre radical past.

Fun Times from Uncle Sugar

Fifteen fabulous ways to stimulate the local economy.

Double Bogey

Muni's bogus tax shelter and theGuardian's bogus lawsuit.

IRS Goes After Examiner Owner

Care Not Cash Volunteer Recommends Work, Ass-Kicking to Homeless in SF Weekly Letters

Your accountant can no longer sell your social security number to Russian hackers

Armenian Genocide Resolution Blog Posting at SFWeekly.com Draws Armenian Ire

Bonds’ Record Homer Ball Worth $500K

No $$ for Blood

Follow the Money

Why does Gavin Newsom need a backer like the California Urban Issues Project?

Best Chronicle Tag-Team

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams

'Roid Ragers

Two macho men and the bitchy bodybuilding world that surrounds -- and, perhaps, spawned -- the BALCO steroids case

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, February 11, 2004

The Tax Man Cometh

The federal government looks to eliminate abusive tax shelters, and it may cost San Francisco tens of millions of dollars

Accounted For

Josh Kornbluth leaves us helpless with laughter and pleasantly lost

Letters to the Editor

Week of May 22, 2002

The Ghost of Scandals Past

Previous "creative financing" debacles should haunt city officials who've approved a risky $1 billion lease of Muni streetcars

Runaway Train

Why is Muni in such a hurry to win approval for a blindingly complex, potentially risky, $1 billion plan to privatize the city's rail fleet?

Letters to the Editor

Cleaning Up the Cash; A Group Hug; Burning Bush; Correction

Dog Bites

Hoochie Nation; Dot-Commers and Taxes

South to the Future

Community or Crime Syndicate? Feds bust online trading scheme

Night + Day

From Russia With Diamonds

In 1995, Golden ADA Inc., a San Francisco diamond-importing firm, collapsed, unveiling an international trail of theft and betrayal that embarrassed San Francisco luminaries involved with the company. Now, newly unsealed court files show that high-level m

Randy Shaw's Power Plays

Sixteen years ago, Randy Shaw started a housing clinic with $50 and a good idea: educating tenants. Now he's got more than $900,000 a year to spend -- and clout to match.

Paper Trails