Lin An had two plans for dealing with the homeless, but before putting them into action, he still had some things to take care of to make sure nothing disrupted them.
When Darnell's phone rang, he was in a café not far from the 103rd Precinct, enthusiastically chewing through a tomahawk steak in front of him, working both sides of his jaw at once.
It was Lin An's promise to Darnell that morning, and now he was making good on it.
As for money, Lin An still had a little left from the money he'd gotten by picking corpses clean a couple of days ago. Tonight's meal would certainly wipe out the balance, but he didn't care in the slightest.
The old BlackBerry on the edge of the table vibrated noisily. Its screen lit up, showing a number labeled "Flatterer."
Lin An, seated at the other end of the table, set down his hot coffee and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Um... is this Mr. Darnell?"
The voice on the other end sounded hesitant.
"This is Lin An. Is this Mr. O'Brien?"
"Oh, yes, yes. You..."
"As we agreed at noon, I'm at the café not far from the 103rd Precinct... Sorry, sir, what's the name of this café?"
"That's all right, sir. I know where you are."
O'Brien said anxiously from the other end of the line.
"I'm off work now. I'll be there soon."
And soon he was. O'Brien really was in a hurry, and ten minutes later, the wind chime hanging over the door jingled.
Carrying a briefcase, O'Brien scanned the café and spotted Lin An at a table against the wall in the far corner. He hurried over. His brisk footsteps and police uniform drew the attention of the dreadlocked guy behind the counter and two women by the window.
"Dr. Lin An!"
O'Brien strode up and held out both hands. Then, as if realizing the gesture was too grand, he pulled one back and finally shook Lin An's hand rather awkwardly.
"It's wonderful that you're willing to help me. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Lin An replied, glancing at the briefcase in his hand.
"Did you bring the things?"
"Of course. I prepared in advance... Uh, I brought everything. I was supposed to be on shift tonight, but luckily Patrick covered for me."
O'Brien sat down across from Lin An. The chair gave a faint creak.
He looked more exhausted than he had when Lin An saw him the night before. His bags under his eyes had grown darker, and his cheekbones seemed more prominent.
The 2008 financial crisis had affected the New York Police Department indirectly... Overtime pay had been cut, pension accounts had shrunk by a third, and there were nearly twice as many homeless people on the streets as there had been the previous winter.
None of that would show up in official statistics, but it was written plainly on the face of a middle-aged cop.
As a Black man, Darnell had practically been born afraid of the police. Still wrestling with his tomahawk steak, he quickly read the room, picked up his plate, and moved to an empty table nearby to continue his feast.
Only then did O'Brien seem to relax a little. He placed both hands on the table and laced his fingers together, then loosened them, then laced them together again.
"Mr. O'Brien, would you like something to drink?"
Lin An asked.
"Coffee? Tea? The coffee here is decent, though it's not as good as in Manhattan..."
"Water's fine."
O'Brien replied.
"I've been drinking coffee all day. My mouth tastes bitter, and I really don't want any more now that I'm off work."
Lin An gave a cooperative chuckle, then got down to business.
"Where are the documents I asked you to bring?"
O'Brien immediately stood up, opened his briefcase, took out all the paper documents inside, and spread them across the table.
Lin An turned his attention to the pile.
"Which one is the letter from the Internal Revenue Service?"
O'Brien quickly picked a yellow envelope out of the pile. It had already been torn open, and the edges had gone fuzzy from being folded over and over.
He pulled out the letter and handed it to Lin An, his fingers trembling slightly.
"This is it,"
he said.
"It says CP2000 at the top. It says I underreported some income on a 1099-K in 2008, but I don't understand what that is.
"I had no other income in 2008. It's all clearly listed on my W-2..."
Lin An took the letter and spread it out, letting the Bullet Screen floating in front of him get a clear look.
[Here it comes, the IRS CP2000. I know this thing well. I got one when I was studying in the United States. It scared me so badly I couldn't sleep for three days.]
[A CP2000 isn't an audit notice. It's basically saying, "We think you underreported your income. Explain yourself."]
[Put simply, it's a tax agency scare letter.]
[1099-K? That form already existed in 2008??? Wasn't it introduced in 2011???]
[Were you living under a rock? The 1099-K was introduced after the 2008 financial crisis. It was widely enforced starting in 2011, but it already existed in 2008.]
[No, no, no. Third-party payment processors weren't required to report anything until 2011. There couldn't have been a 1099-K in 2008. The letter must be a CP2000 about some other income.]
[That's not the point. Streamer, ask the cop if he sold anything on Amazon last year.]
After reading the Bullet Screen, Lin An had a rough idea of what was going on.
"Did you sell anything on Amazon in 2008?"
O'Brien paused.
"I... Yes. I sold some old things. My father died that year, and he left behind some tools and a few old guitars. I didn't know what to do with them, so I sold them on Amazon."
"How much did you get for them?"
"About... two or three thousand dollars?"
[Turn the page. Let me see page two.]
Lin An turned to the second page of the letter.
[There, that's it. This number is the key, streamer... Seven thousand four hundred and thirty-one dollars??? What did he sell? His ass?]
Lin An waited a moment, then asked O'Brien:
"The IRS records in this letter show that you received $7,431 through PayPal. Is that right?"
O'Brien froze. He clutched his head and thought hard for a long time before shaking his head.
"Impossible."
O'Brien sounded completely certain.
"Absolutely impossible. I know exactly how much money I had last year. My father didn't leave much of value. I sold a Gibson guitar for about $2,200, plus some tools. It couldn't have added up to more than $3,500..."
"Did you check your PayPal records carefully?"
"I..."
O'Brien stopped, his eyes widening as he seemed to realize what mattered.
"I don't really know how to read that stuff. Doesn't PayPal report the taxes itself?"
[No.]
[PayPal just sends you the money. Filing your taxes is your responsibility.]
[And PayPal sends the IRS a 1099-K saying, "This guy received ten thousand dollars," but the IRS doesn't know how much of that ten thousand was your cost.]
[That's the worst thing about the 1099-K. It reports gross transactions, not profit. I suspect whoever came up with it did it on purpose.]
[Wait a minute. Seven thousand four hundred and three thousand five hundred are almost four thousand apart. Shipping and fees can't explain that.]
[Maybe his father's account was in use too.]
[He didn't just sell guitars and tools. There must've been something else he's forgotten about.]
Lin An set the letter on the table and lightly tapped the figure "7,431" with his finger.
"Mr. O'Brien, did your father sell things online while he was alive?"
O'Brien furrowed his brow, as if trying to remember something from long ago.
"He... Yes. He couldn't sit still after he retired. He was always tinkering with old stuff in the garage, and when he fixed something, he'd put it online for sale. He had a store. What was it called..."
"Did he use your PayPal account or his own?"
"His own. He had his own bank account and credit card."
"And the Social Security number linked to his PayPal account was his?"
"I suppose so. I'm not sure, but I think it was."
[So here's the question: why would the IRS attribute that money to O'Brien?]
[Unless his dad's PayPal account was linked to his bank account or credit card.]
[Or his dad's account had been shut down, and the money was transferred into his account.]
[Another possibility: after his father died, he used his father's account to sell things, but the account information wasn't changed. The IRS system still had those payments under his father's SSN, but because he withdrew them to the same bank account, the bank records made it look like the money belonged to him.]
[Data mismatches between the IRS and banks are extremely common.]
[I'll bet fifty cents the problem is the bank account.]
Lin An thought it over and approached the problem from a different angle.
"Mr. O'Brien, after your father died, whose eBay account did you use to get rid of his old things?"
"His."
"What about the PayPal account?"
"That was his too."
"Then which bank account did you transfer the money to?"
O'Brien opened his mouth, then slowly closed it.
"Mine. After he got sick, I linked his PayPal to my bank account to make it easier for him to withdraw money. He was having trouble remembering his password by then, so I..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
[Case solved.]
[His father's PayPal was linked to his bank account. The IRS data didn't match up, so it counted both sets of transactions as his.]
[More precisely, this is how the IRS system works: there's a 1099-K for $7,400 under SSN A, but the bank account linked to that 1099-K belongs to SSN B. So the IRS algorithm attributes that money to SSN B too.]
[Who wrote this algorithm? Take them out and shoot them for five minutes.]
[Who knows? Anyway, PayPal's data reporting in 2008 was a complete mess.]
[Everyone was swimming in a complete mess in 2008. After the subprime mortgage crisis, the IRS was a disaster too.]
[So what O'Brien needs to do now is send his father's death certificate to the IRS and divide the transaction records into two groups: the sales his father made while he was alive and the sales made after his death.]
[Right. The sales made while he was alive count as part of the estate. The sales after his death count as O'Brien's income, but he can deduct the cost.]
[How do you calculate the cost of the Gibson guitar? He doesn't have a receipt.]
[Use its fair market value. The guitar's market price on the day his father died is its cost basis.]
[You can look that up. There are records of Gibson guitar prices for different years.]
Lin An set the letter down, folded his hands on the table, and looked at O'Brien across from him. The middle-aged cop had his forehead braced in one palm, and the skin visible between his fingers had taken on an unhealthy grayish pallor.
"Mr. O'Brien, I think I have a general idea of what went wrong."
O'Brien raised his head.
"Before your father died, his PayPal account was linked to your bank account. The 1099-K the IRS received showed his total transactions for the year...
"Both the transactions from before his death and those from after. But in the IRS system, your bank account was linked to your Social Security number, so the algorithm attributed all those transactions to you."
He paused to give the cop time to absorb this.
"But only part of that money was actually yours... The money from the things you sold through his account after your father died.
"The rest came from things your father sold while he was alive. That was part of his estate, not your income."
O'Brien's lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but no words came out.
"And,"
Lin An continued,
"the part you sold still allows you to deduct the cost. The cost basis of the guitar wasn't what your father paid for it when he bought it; it was the guitar's market value on the day he died. In other words..."
"Sorry, sir, I don't understand any of this. Just tell me what I should do."
He lowered his head and stared for a long time at the pile of scattered documents on the table.
"I graduated from high school with good grades, but I don't understand a single one of the English terms you've used..."
[Here we go. Everyday English and professional English are very different. The gap between fields is real.]
[The cop isn't stupid. These are just words he'd never encounter in daily life.]
[How could a high school graduate understand something like "cost basis"? It's an accounting term.]
"And American high schools don't teach this stuff. You can spend twelve years in school and still not know how to file taxes. That has nothing to do with whether you're smart or stupid."
[That's the problem. American law requires citizens to file taxes, but it doesn't require schools to teach them how.]
[Then, when you make a mistake, the government fines you and charges you interest.]
[O'Brien just said he had "good grades." That's heartbreaking.]
"Okay,"
Lin An said, pulling the documents closer to himself.
"Then I'll put it another way. You don't have to understand those terms. All you need to tell me is whether you're willing to spend an hour letting me help sort this out."
O'Brien raised his head.
"An hour is enough?"
"It is."
"Then... what do I need to do?"
Lin An took out the handwritten notes from his backpack, turned to a blank side, and picked up a pen.
"First, your father's name and the exact date he died."
"Michael O'Brien. October 14, 2008."
Lin An wrote the name and date on a piece of paper.
"Second, do you have a computer and printer at home?"
"I do. My son's old laptop can get online, but I'm not very good with it."
"That's all right," Lin An said.
"I'll come by tomorrow afternoon. You just need to let me in. I'll handle the computer."
O'Brien paused.
"You're coming to my house?"
"If that's convenient for you."
"It is," O'Brien said, speaking a little faster than before.
"It's convenient. I'll take the day off tomorrow and stay home all day."
Lin An wrote down an address—the one O'Brien had just given him. It was on 108th Street, only four blocks from Darnell's apartment.
"Third."
He said, pushing the paper across the table.
"Can you find these things tonight?"
O'Brien looked down at the paper. Lin An's handwriting was neat, every line clearly written:
Your father's death certificate
Your W-2 form (2008)
The model and year of the guitar you sold (Gibson guitar—which specific model?)
Your father's eBay username and password (if you still remember them)
"Do you remember what model the guitar was?" Lin An asked.
"A 1959 Gibson reissue. My father bought it in 1998 and paid eighteen hundred dollars."
[ A 1959 reissue???]
[He bought it for $1,800 in 1998. By 2008, it was worth at least $3,000 to $4,000.]
[If he sold it for $2,200 in 2008, he actually sold it at a loss.]
[The loss could be deducted from his other income.]
[Wait, this is important. If his father paid $1,800 for the guitar in 1998, and it was worth $3,500 when he died in 2008, then the cost basis was $3,500. O'Brien sold it for $2,200, so he lost $1,300.]
[With a $1,300 loss, plus the tools and other items, he wouldn't just owe no taxes—he could get a sizable refund.]
Lin An glanced at the Bullet Screen and ran through the figures in his head.
"Mr. O'Brien," he said.
"How much did you get for the guitar?"
"Twenty-two hundred. I remember it clearly because the buyer was from California and kept haggling with me."
"How much did your father pay for it?"
"Eighteen hundred bucks. He told me it was the most expensive toy he'd ever bought. My mother actually had a fight with him over it."
Lin An nodded.
"Okay, then you don't owe the IRS anything. You might even get a refund."
O'Brien's eyes widened.
"A refund?"
"Yes. You sold the guitar at a loss. Your father's cost was eighteen hundred, but based on its market value when he died, the guitar was worth over $3,500.
"You sold it for $2,200, so you lost more than a thousand dollars. That loss can be deducted from your other income."
O'Brien's mouth opened, then closed again. His expression was impossibly complicated.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
O'Brien stared at Lin An for a long time, then reached across the table and grasped his hand tightly.
"Thank you..." he said, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper.
"Thank you, Dr. Lin An."
America was a capitalist corporation disguised as a country. It squeezed everyone equally; even government employees received no special treatment. The IRS went after police officers, too.
O'Brien let go and took a deep breath. He gathered the pile of documents on the table and stuffed them back into his briefcase. He moved with far more ease than before, and his hands had stopped shaking.
[The streamer just saved this cop's life.]
[How so?]
[Without the streamer's help, there's no way this cop could've solved the problem himself. He doesn't know anything about this stuff, so he'd have to hire a tax attorney. After all the hassle, it would cost at least two thousand bucks.]
[Wouldn't a cheap accountant do?]
[No. A regular accountant couldn't handle this. It's only because there are so many people in the stream, and they've seen all kinds of things, that the cop got help from at least ten professionals. Otherwise, this would leave an ordinary person tearing their hair out, unable to figure out what was going on.]
[If he did nothing and let the IRS fine him, how much would the cop lose?]
[I used to work in debt collection in the United States. I did a rough calculation... at the U.S. tax rate of 25% in 2009, he'd owe about $1,858 in taxes, plus a 20% penalty and roughly a year's interest. Adding everything up, he'd be out at least $2,300.]
[Holy shit, how much does this cop make in a year? One unavoidable hit like that would take him out, wouldn't it?]
[Most likely, it'd destroy the whole family. They'd all get wiped out.]
[Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. America is brutal. The IRS made the mistake, but then dumped the blame on ordinary people and crushed them with it.]
Before you continue