The Pattie Gentile Show as heard on WADK Radio Ep 33

Pattie Gentile's "Fighting the Good Fight Podcast" is now a weekly radio program! Heard Saturday evening's at 6 and again Sunday morning at 10 at www.wadk.com or 1540AM Newport RI.

Host Patricia Gentile continues "Defending Taxpayers & Solving Their Tax Problems". With this new format, The Pattie Gentile Show will be your weekly appointment with Host Pattie Gentile & her guest experts as they discuss the latest tax news, issues and cutting-edge strategies to resolve and prevent tax problems.

Here on episode 33, we welcome Elena Jawitz-Blue & Darian "Blue" Jawitz, of New Hampshire based My Optic leaders in the high-end eyewear business. 

Learn more at : Opticians – Myoptic

Enjoy and tune in on WADK.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is Patricia Gentile, founder of New England Tax Relief and host of the Patty Gentile Show. A client once wrote me, quote, my husband and I found ourselves in debt to the IRS for $167,000. I had contacted a company that said they would help. After I paid them $6,000, I found out that they took my money and ran. I was desperate and searched for a local tax attorney and found Patricia. She was able to get our tax debt reduced to $36,000. End quote. The moral of that story is that you really need to be able to trust the person you choose to represent you with the IRS. With over 43 years of combined experience as a taxpayer, defense attorney, and CPA, I have successfully resolved hundreds of difficult IRS situations. One-on-one, personal attention is the hallmark of my representation, and my strategies are customized to your specific needs to completely resolve your IRS issues. So go to my website, New EnglandTaxrelief.com, and schedule a free telephone consultation or call me at 1-800-880-8388, where a live person will always answer and take your message 24-7. Welcome everyone to the Patty Gentile Show. And in studio with me, as always, is my producer, John Ayanuzi. And last week I missed giving out this our poll question phone number. It's also for you to be able to text your answers to our poll questions, to uh provide any comments you'd like, to ask any questions you might have, business and tax related, as we discuss uh on this show, or any topics that or guests even that you'd like to hear. Because we we've had uh you know, for example, we had Jim Campbell on, the author of Madoff Talks, and he was discussing his experience uh in interviewing uh Madoff, and as we know Netflix turned his book into a uh movie titled Madoff Monster of Wall Street. So we like to mix it up here, and and if there's a guest or a topic you would like to hear, just let us know. And the number is 603-204-0104. And I'll say it again throughout the show today, um, because I just realized that it was something that I forgot last week. John, I wanted to mention, we like John and I like to mention notable dates here, and it just recently ended a few days ago, but there was Nurses Appreciation Week, and it was from May 6th through May 12th. I actually thought it was an actual you know week from a weekend to weekend, and I thought I was going to be timely in acknowledging it on today's show, but however, it was like midweek to midweek, and I just want to say thank you uh to all the nurses that I know, whether they're um in emergency rooms or they are taking care of my mom at her assisted living facility. Thank you. I you guys just do uh like Florence Nightingale job. I mean, that's how Florence Nightingale has been acknowledged. Matter of fact, her birthday is May 12th, and she was born in 1820. So that's why the Nurses Appreciation Week ended on May 12th. So it went from May 6th to May 12th, and I just want to acknowledge you nurses out there. Another uh uh date, notable date, May 13th was night workers day. And man, the graveyard shift workers.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

They it's not for everybody, I can tell you. It wasn't for me, Patty.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Oh, did you do it in your uh production?

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Oh absolutely, oh yeah, but yeah at Westwood One, I would do the NBA games and the NHL games and the MLB games, and um you know the West Coast games would go into the Wii hours of the morning. Then I worked a proper overnight shift, which included the end of the West Coast games and then the morning drive radio programs, everything from IMAS in the morning to all the morning drive radio, it it threw off my internal clock a hundred percent. I I firmly believe it it it it took me years to rebound from that disruption to my internal body rhythms.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Right. I I my biological clock couldn't even adjust to that. I just know that so it isn't a shift that I could even do, but there are people not just in the medical fields, in public service, our first responders, who are overnight, but there are three shift factory workers, there are maintenance workers that are working overnight because they cannot do their job and disrupt uh a business or uh uh a hospital, etc., during the day. So the work has to be done overnight. And like I said, factory workers that work the graveyard shift. So I salute night workers' day on May 13th.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Um when I was doing the graveyard shift coming home on Sunday. I honestly, Patty, I made a lot of friends at like the rest stop. Oh, okay, yeah. You know, I there there were people that I would see every day at these bizarre hours for the o'clock in the morning, and you know, we started I'd get a cup of coffee, you know, or a snack, or use the restroom and and you end up making friends with these people that you see every day who were working these same peculiar hours as you. And um and I would get home and try and stay up, but I'd crash. I would just crash.

SPEAKER_05 7:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I could imagine that you guys have that that in common that you're up yes when nobody else is pretty much in the world, you know, nobody is, so no, and and so I could see how you guys can form uh a kinship there. The uh other thing I wanted to mention here is that Cher, the singer and the actress Cher, her birthday is May 20th. She was born in 1946, which means she's going to turn 80 years old in a few days. I watched Cher on her television show in the 70s when I was uh in my teens. I watched uh I've listened to her music for years, I've watched her movies, and I just wanna it's it's just very nostalgic for me. Uh but to think that Cher's turned 80 is wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

That's yes, yeah. And she has basically managed to be relevant in one capacity or another in every decade.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Oh, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

If you think about it, there's a hit or a film or something from for my entire life. Every decade of my life, there's something that Cher was relevant in. Yeah. Big fan. I'm I was a I was a fan in the 80s and and 90s for sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Moonstruck and right.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

I loved her movies. There wasn't anything I didn't I thought she was a great actress. Darius Rucker, the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish, recognized his 60th birthday uh within this past week too. I before we go into the break, John, do you have any downloads that you want to acknowledge?

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Thank you. We we listen, and we say it every week. We appreciate everyone who continues to download. So by calling out some of the newer municipalities, some of the newer areas, we are not taking for granted the people who continue to revisit. So uh come back. But welcome Dural, Florida, which is down near Miami. Yeah, and right in your backyard, Hollis, New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Ah, thank you, neighbor. I appreciate that very much. So we've gone from New Hampshire down all the way down to uh near Miami and Dorel this week as new downloaders. And I want to thank you for that. I mentioned last week, so before we go into the break, I'm I wanted to remind our listeners that I mentioned last week that leading up to the 250th birthday of the United States on July 4th of this year, uh I was going to cover, and I'm going to do that in our next segment after the break, our taxpayer bill of rights. And we have 10 of them. And so I'm going to cover them from now until the July 4th birthday. And in our last segment, you don't want to miss this as well. The I'm going to cover the IRS's internal revenue manual, give you a just a brief overview about it, and just a section in it that pertains to a lot of people right now. It's really called, quote unquote, the rule book, and it's used to train employees to administer and enforce the Internal Revenue Code. And so you might uh be very interested in why this is important for you if you are trying to set up an installment agreement, submit uh a request for an offering compromise, trying to get currently not collectible status. These this internal revenue manual is very important to understand how the IRS is looking at your income and your necessary living expenses that you have to present to them on their form 433-A. Very important. So, once again, here's our phone number to text in your answers to poll questions. And uh if you have questions, you have comments, etc. I want to mention that it's 603-204-0104. And here's a last poll question. What are you growing in your garden? Because May is salad month. So come on back and we'll talk about the taxpayer bill of rights. The next eight weeks, I believe we have until the 250th birthday of the United States on July 4th, 2026. And I'm going to cover our 10 taxpayer bill of rights. These are the cornerstone that highlights the 10 fundamental rights that taxpayers have when dealing with the IRS. And the IRS wants every taxpayer to be aware of these rights in the event they need to work with the IRS on a personal tax matter or a business tax matter. The IRS continues to publicly highlight these rights to taxpayers. For example, if you go on the IRS's website, IRS.gov, you can put in the search box, type in the search box, taxpayer bill of rights, and there'll be some outline description of each one of them. But I find a much better discussion about each one of these rights on the IRS's Taxpayer Advocate Services web page. So I invite you, if you want to get more in-depth than what you're hearing from me as I cover these, to actually go to the uh taxpayer advocates webpage. It's the Taxpayer Advocate Services website, and that's what you want to go to, in my opinion. Because the IRS adopted the taxpayer bill of rights in 2014 as proposed by the former national taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson. And she believed that each and every taxpayer has a set of fundamental rights they should be aware of when dealing with the IRS. Plain and simple. Once we start reviewing these, you'll know it too if you're working with the IRS, either on behalf of yourself as a taxpayer, or if you're a tax professional who is supporting taxpayers who have tax problems and issues. The IRS also regularly reminds its employees about these rights. So here's the 10 rights, and then we'll discuss a couple of them very briefly. But the right to be informed, the right to quality service, the right to pay no more than the correct amount of tax, the right to challenge the IRS's position and be heard. This is what I do every day on behalf of my clients, the right to appeal an IRS decision in an independent forum, which I do all regularly, the right to finality, the right to privacy, the right to confidentiality. Here I am, the right to retain representation, taxpayer bill of rights number nine. I think it should be number one, of course. And the right to a fair and just tax system. And so to start right off, the first right listed here is the right to be informed, and taxpayers have the right to know what they need to do to comply with tax laws. They are entitled to clear explanations of the law and IRS procedures in all tax forms, instructions, uh, there's publications, notices, and correspondence. So they have, meaning the taxpayer has the right to be informed of IRS decisions about their tax accounts and to receive clear explanations of the outcomes. And so, what does this mean for you? It means if you receive a notice fully or partially, for example, disallowing a refund claim, including a refund you claim on your income tax return, it must be explained. Uh the specific reasons must be explained why the claim is being disallowed. And there's an internal code revenue code section about that. And generally, if you owe a penalty, each written notice of such penalty must provide an explanation of the penalty, including the name of the penalty, the authority under the internal revenue code, and how it is calculated. During an in-person interview with the IRS as part of an audit, the IRS employee must explain the audit process and your rights under that process. Likewise, during an in-person interview with the IRS concerning the collection of your tax. The IRS employee must explain the collection process and your rights under that process. And there's an internal revenue code section supporting that. So generally, the IRS uses publication one entitled Your Rights as a Taxpayer to meet this requirement. But what is publication one? It's the 10 taxpayer bill of rights. So I want you to uh check that out. The IRS must include on certain notices the amount, if any, of the tax, interests, and certain penalties you owe, and must explain why you owe these amounts. That's supported by an internal revenue code section. And the IRS must inform you in certain publications and instructions that when you file a joint income tax return with your spouse, both of you are responsible for all tax due and any additional amounts due for that tax year unless innocent spouse relief applies. And so the IRS, uh if the IRS proposes to assess tax against you, it will send you a letter providing the examination report, stating the proposed changes, and providing you with the opportunity for a review by an appeals officer if you respond generally within 30 days. You can also actually see an explanation of the entire process from examination, which is in other words an audit through collection through the first communication from the examiner. They must provide that explanation and explain that the taxpayer advocate service may be able to assist you. So there's a few other things in this, and and we won't even have enough time to get to the second taxpayer bill of rights, but I want to start this off with the right to be informed, taxpayer bill of rights number one, and go to uh the taxpayer advocate services website to get a full detail on what this means for you for any one of the taxpayer bill of rights. Coming up in our next segment is our guests today, Alina and Darien Jowitz Blue. And they go by Alina and Blue. They are the owners of My Optic in downtown Nashua, New Hampshire, where we discuss their business model and their personalized optical services. They operate by appointment only to provide tailored experiences, including sensory styling for neurodivergent individuals and wedding experiences. And they offer mobile services for various settings and they support local charities and they offer a discount for donations, for example, to the National Humane Society. So, really the store here emphasizes, and Alina and Blue, they emphasize personalized eyewear selection, contrasting with the rushed experience at the traditional optometrist office. So come on back and meet Alina and Blue and enjoy what they offer here today. Show. And as I mentioned before the break, our guests today are Elena and Blue. And they are the owners of My Optic Optical Store in downtown Nashua, New Hampshire. And I love their business model. So welcome, Elena and Blue. Why don't you tell us about your story of how you ended up buying this store that was a legacy here for uh I think about 30 plus years in downtown Nashua, New Hampshire?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Um, yeah, so whenever Blue and I travel out of town, we always try to see local optical shops. And it's that's always been a passion of both of ours. Um and I was working at my corporate job, and Blue was working at his corporate job at the time, and we drove up to New Hampshire for a wedding. We were staying in Nashua, so we wouldn't have to drive all the way back to Massachusetts um after celebrating with our friends, and we came into myoptic because it was a local shop, and we met the owner Bob, and he was hilarious. We became friends with him right away. And ever since then, every time we came into Nashu, we'd always stop in and spend two to four hours talking to him about the industry and the way of the world and almost everything.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Well, that's cool. That's cool. So, how was it that it came to be that you bought Bob out of his store?

SPEAKER_03 23:53

So uh, like uh Elena had mentioned, uh we would come up here, I would say once every other week uh following the time that of our initial visit to go hiking. And every um every time we came up here to talk to Bob, I mean to go hiking, we talked to Bob for about a couple hours. Um and we would just talk shop, like she said, about the industry. And um, I don't know how exactly it got brought up, but it did get brought up that he was uh trying to retire. And so we were our passion was to always own our own optical shop, and we love this place. So um, you know, one conversation led to another, and here we are.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

So, how long has it been uh since you bought Bob out and my optic is yours?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

So um we officially purchased the business in February, and then we opened the doors in March of uh 2025. That's nice. A little bit over a year now. Very good.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Uh I did read on your website that under a new chapter, you know, that you say where legacy meets new energy. And could you describe your business model at this point where you incorporate that?

SPEAKER_00 25:24

So um we've we've decided to go appointment only to be able to curate different experiences for different people because everyone's got a different need. And Bob has fostered a lot of many long-term clients that drive from New Jersey and Florida and all over. So when they come in, we definitely want to be able to honor them, but we wouldn't want somebody who came from Nashua to feel like they're getting pushed aside because we still want to be able to honor our time with them as well. Um, it allows us to curate different experiences, such as our safe space uh sensory styling experience for um neurodivergent people or people who need a little bit of extra time, or it's different requirements such as light sensitivity. Um, maybe someone who's trans and just starting to come out but not comfortable talking about it with certain people. There's um also our wedding experience as well, where you people are able to bring in their suit or their dress, um, they have champagne, celebrate an experience that's going to be happening to them.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

I also recognize when you were announcing that you're operating by appointment only, and that you know, you expanded mobile services, uh, such as that, you know, you could be at a shop fitting safety glasses at factories or construction sites. You visit clients in nursing homes or hospice care. Yeah, you could be styling on eyewear, excuse me, for a runway or bringing myoptic to other unique settings in the community. Can you share any of those experiences?

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Um yeah, so we've we've um done tabling and other venues, um, such as Club Pilates. We had a trunk show earlier in the year where we brought a few frames. Um and we recently gave a gift certificate to one of their members of the month as well. So that's been a really great local relationship. And we went to the Liberty Hotel as part of a fashion show as well. We also had a little table there too.

SPEAKER_03 28:07

So we also provided glasses for um New Hampshire Fashion Week of last year. So a lot of the models who were walking the runway, uh, not just showing the governments, but they were also showcasing the uh high-end luxury eyewear that we uh do provide at the shop.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I I do want to mention how much more you're community-minded here, where I saw on your website when I was making my appointment that if you bring a can of cat food, you get 20% off.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yes, so we're very supportive of the National Humane Society. And I'm actually on their board as well, and in their marketing committee, and currently working on their gala committee. Um, also every time they post a major need, sometimes we'll adjust that 20% discount. For example, right now, their major need is dry food and litter. So we're including those items as well in our um regular cab drive.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Is there anything else you'd like to share about your business model for our listeners as well as how they can get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Um so I'd like to share that it's really been a blessing to get to know our clients and be able to help meet needs of people who might not necessarily have them met in their optometry office.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Yeah. So what we uh what I feel that we provide is a uh is a tailored experience, right? Like you you go to your local optometrist to get your prescription, and you know, they shove you out to the optical space, and it's like, hey, they need glasses, and you're expected to kick something within like 20 minutes, right? It's it's that doesn't to me, that doesn't feel like an experience. To me, that just feels like I'm being rushed to do something. So and you wear glasses all day, it's a part of you, it's it expresses who you are. So that's what I believe we curate is a way to uh find a way to express who you are.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

I love that. That's uh how I look at uh wearing glasses, and I have all my life. Once you know you're gonna be wearing glasses anyway, 24-7, other than if you even fall asleep in them. That that's how I look at it too. So, how can people get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

So the best way to get in touch with us is through our website, myopticonmain.com. Um, we've got all of our contact info on there as well. There's also a link right at the top of the page to book an appointment. Um and on our social media, we're myoptic on main on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Perfect. Thank you so much for being on and all much success to you. Of course, yeah, I'm an advertisement for you now as I go around. Take care and thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Welcome back, everyone. This is the Patty Gentile show. And in our last segment here, with I like to call my coaching corner, it's for both taxpayers and tax professionals who are supporting clients who have tax problems. One of the things that are is going to start happening if if you're not already involved in it right now, is notices. IRS notices will be forthcoming uh around the uh memorial weekend or or late to early late May, early June for uh their collection notices. If you have balances owed from the most recent filing of your 2025 tax returns, whether it's personal or business, if you have back taxes owed and uh letters are now uh notices to collect those taxes from you for prior tax years that you owe for are coming regularly. In order to negotiate, for example, uh an installment agreement, uh submit an offer and compromise application, request currently not collectible status, those types of tax resolution programs, it is required that you submit with your uh request a form 433-A. Now that's for wage earners and sole proprietor businesses. There is a form 433-B where you submit financial collection information uh on entities. You may be a shareholder, owner of uh a corporation, or you may be a partner in a partnership business. Part of what's on the form 433A, which is what I'm going to address here, there is a specific page of your necessary living expenses and your average monthly income. That page will calculate what your average monthly they call on this form net income, personal net income. I call it disposable income. That from your average necessary uh, excuse me, your average monthly income minus your average necessary living expenses, which also includes current taxes, uh, as well as health care, housing and utilities, transportation, medical, that if you have any money left over, they the IRS calls it net income, average monthly net income, and once again, I like to call it disposable income because they're looking at that as income that can be disposed to them to resolve your tax uh that you owe them, taxes, interests, and penalties balance. So there's this internal revenue manual, uh which is really quote unquote called the rule book that the IRS uses to determine how to proceed on accounts. And you're an account, if you're a collection and they they call that an account. There are rules for nearly every transaction the IRS does with you in this internal revenue manual, and there are also examples in cases that are not clear cut. So in this, I'm going to abbreviate it, IRM. There are cases that are uh that they give examples of cases that are not clear cut to give you uh their employees an idea of how to handle that. So this the IRM here trains employees, and it's not the final authority, meaning the internal revenue code or tax law can supersede it. But the IRM is internal procedural guide used by the IRS to administer and enforce the Internal Revenue Code. And the IRS, you know, will make uh some guidance when making it, they will use the internal revenue manual, uh some of its guidance when making a determination on an account, as long as it's supporting the internal revenue code. Once again, the IRM is not the final authority. So when it comes to an area about personal income, the IRM, as a general rule, the taxpayers' current income should be used in the analysis here of their ability to pay in the future what they currently owe. And it considers all sources of current income when determining uh the taxpayer's future ability to pay. But the IRS's job is to collect, so that will try to collect as quickly as possible so they will go off whatever income is the most beneficial to the IRS. And what does that mean? Well, they need to take into consideration all aspects of a taxpayer's financial picture, like did they lose a did the taxpayer lose a big client that will reduce income going forward? Are they near the age of retirement? We're in a situation where they will be unable to work full-time. And are they going to have a child and need to take into account future expenses? So this is something to look at. And you can look at the IRS's internal revenue manual. You can go into the search box on IRS.gov and you can type in internal revenue manual, and I can tell you there are several chapters and subsections. So if you were looking at what is the IRS going to take into account and my ability to pay this debt, this tax debt, and collect from me in the future, considering all my facts and circumstances, you'd go to that manual. I quickly want to mention the internal revenue manual and look up specifically when it comes to your necessary living expenses. Look up the IRS's national standards, their local standards. These are for housing and utility, vehicle ownership and operating expenses, food and clothing, out-of-pocket health care costs. And I want you to know that these are guidelines. There are instances in which it is appropriate to include expenses beyond the national standards. And so if you're running into uh looking at or having to fill out or prepare an IRS form 433-A, and you have questions, whether you're a taxpayer or a tax professional supporting clients with tax problems, let's talk about the specific facts and circumstances, what's allowable to present and take as deductions, what's allowable to present about future income ability to pay. You can contact me at newengland taxrelief.com. Schedule right there on my home page complimentary telephone consultation or call me at 1-800-880-8388. And let's talk this through because there don't allow yourself to be intimidated by the IRS representative you're working with to say this is how it's got to be, because the Internal Revenue Manual does allow for outside, let's put it outside the box type of uh situations, and I've advocated for that and won. So until next week, have a good week.