Mom

I lost my "Mom" this week.

Who was she?

Rochelle Kantor was my Jewish Mother. Note that both word are capitalized.

I was a somewhat struggleing tax auditor when Rochelle asked me to come to review and be a stat notice writer. Part of it was out of affection for my husband. Part of it was because she felt that if my husband believed that I was not an incompetent idiot, I wasn't. She knew him. And because she knew him, she believed in me.

I went up on a 90-day detail. I was supervised. I was reviewing "short-90's" Cases that were no-shows, where the notice was based on the initial report. I was quick to pick up the errors. The disallowance of Schedule C expenses without an adjustment to the SE tax. The changes to AGI while ignoring the NOL carryover. My coaches were impressed.

I was put into a position of seeing how many "short-90's" could be issued (signed
and mailed) before the true push of the April 15th statute of limitations would hit.

I reviewed, I signed, I issued some 1,000 or more cases before the statute ran.

Then I was promoted to "long form letters" These were the letters on the cases where the proposed deficiency exceeded the amount that could be petitioned to "S" Court (the Tax Court equlivency to small-claims cout).

This was in the early '80's. There were no computer programs (at least in the IRS) that saved paragraphs of language for disallowance of deductions, credits, expenses or any thing else. EVERYTHING had to be written out in long-hand.

Rochelle (by that time she had become 'MOM') put together a task force to write standard paragraphs of disallowance for the 90% of most common items we encountered.

When we weren't working cases, we were writing "standard paragraphs".

Mom would attend the monthly staff meetings of the managers on her level and above.
She would come back from the meeting and call us into her office. She would explain what upper-level management wanted, and she would ask, "How can we do this?"

She absolutely understood that if EVERYONE, from bottom to top was not involved in the process, there could be no success.

When I was called for Jury duty, and was empanneled on a jury on a murder/kiddnapping trial that was scheduled to last for 6 or more months, she created a job that I could fulfill on the one or less days a week I was in the office. She made me the 'problem slover' (actually, my describtion of it was the 'garbage handler') She woud put aside the things that took more than 30 minutes to resolve, the items that required communication amoungst units, and when I was in the office, I dealt with them.

Mom believed in me. Because she believed I could do things, I could. I owe much of my success in my carrer to her.

She told me I could do things, and because of her words, I could.

Mom once said, "The difference between a child and an adult is that an adult understands AND ACCEPTS the consequences of their actions." Those words have become a template for my life.

MOM, MOM, you're gone!!!!!!! Who will I lean on NOw????!!!!