OP
Capt Jim Wyatt
Hanging at the 10 Foot Stop
Staff member
ScubaBoard Business Sponsor
Scuba Instructor
There was no disciplinary action by any agency against me regarding the Shannon Lewis accident.
There was disciplinary action against me for what NACD regarded as stealing $193. This disagreement went on for about a year. They threatened me as you can see in the attached document. They were also angry at me for doing my job as treasurer as exposing tax problems with the IRS before my tenure as treasurer. I have attached two scans of documents sent to the NACD from the IRS after I filed the two year delinquent tax returns.
The file kicking me out is too large to upload here so I have linked it at: http://www.cavediveflorida.com/NACD-Kicked.pdf . The timing was always suspect to me.
The words below the line are a report I wrote many years ago. The NACD cleaned up its financial house many years ago and I bring this up to defend against the thinking that NACD disciplined me regarding Shannon Lewis.
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When I was appointed as a BoD member in January 2006 I was asked to be the treasurer. I suspect I was asked to be treasurer because of my formal education in accounting and the fact I had been the business manager/controller for a $5 million IRS 501 ( c ) (3) not for profit business in the Florida Keys for 5 years, and the fact I had owned and operated a successful dive charter business for 5 years as well.
The first step in my tenure as treasurer was to gather all the records of the business of the NACD. I found no formal bookkeeping procedures or records in place, and as far as I could tell there were none for at least the past two years. There was no way to determine what dollars spent was spent for or what dollars received were earned for. It was obvious to me then that the BoD was operating the financial aspects of the business without benefit of accounting or bookkeeping information.
No bank statements had been reconciled for over 2 years, no investment account statements had been reconciled either. The reports that I found that the BoD had been accepting for many months, maybe even years were typed pieces of paper with bank and investment account balances. No reconciliations were asked for by the BoD as far as I could ascertain.
When I asked a few board members about this as well as the operations manager I was told it was someone elses fault.
The next step I took was to begin setting up the bookkeeping on a computer using QuickBooks, which is a commercially available piece of software specifically for keeping the books of a business. I own a copy of this program and did not require the NACD to purchase any software or a computer for this.
When I left the NACD there were 16 months of financial accounting data on the QuickBooks program. All accounts were reconciled and the reconciliations are reflected in the QuickBooks program.
The NACD is a tax exempt organization under IRS code 501 ( c ) (3). This tax exemption does not relieve the organization from filing an income tax return each year with the IRS. When I began reviewing the records I could find no tax returns for the years 2004 or 2005.
I inquired with board members and the operations manager about these filings and they indicated that they did not know anything about them, again placing blame on someone else. I called the bookkeeping service that had done the tax returns for the NACD in prior years and he stated that no one from the NACD had contacted his office to do taxes for a couple of years.
Next I called the IRS and asked about the tax returns. The representative told me no tax returns had been filed for 2004 or 2005 and that the tax exempt status of the NACD was in jeopardy.
My next move was to again contact the bookkeeping service that had previously prepared the tax returns in prior years and ask him to help us get into compliance with these returns. He asked for all bank statements for the year 2004, and 2005. These statements were no where in the records. I had to call the Bank of America to get the bank statements, this took about 2 weeks for the bank to go back through their archives and get these statements. 24 months, with 5 accounts, so there were 120 individual statements that I needed and also all 120 needed reconciliations to get us up to date for the two years we were delinquent. The billing to the NACD was about $1,000.00 to do this work.
After I received the old bank statements and the bookkeeping service was able to reconcile them they were able to prepare the tax return, first 2004 and after it was resolved we would file for 2005. After we filed the 2004 return the IRS on September 4, 2006 then sent the NACD a bill for $2,412.60 as a late filing penalty which was due September 25, 2006. See attached.
After receipt of this bill I notified the BoD and the operations manager everyone was stunned.
I prepared a letter to the IRS explaining that our current BoD was composed of cave divers with little or no business background and that there was no intention of filing late or of undermining the process, asking for an adjustment of that bill to zero. I further explained that they had appointed me to take care of these business matters in the future and that I am a trained accountant.
They responded on October 30, 2006 and applied my requested adjustment. So we owed them zero dollars. (See attached letter)
Now my job was to tackle the 2005 taxes. No need to re-iterate the steps about bank statements, reconciliations and working with the bookkeeper to ensure the taxes finally got filed. It was the same process, the numbers were different.
We filed the 2005 return and in turn received a letter from the IRS dated December 31, 2006 assessing a $740.00 penalty for filing that tax return. I prepared the same type letter and got the same results. On January 8, 2007 I got the letter from the IRS relieving us of the penalty.
It is my contention that the members of the NACD BoD, and operations manager have a fiduciary responsibility to the organization and the membership to ensure that all business matters of this nature are taken care of. It is also my contention that the BoD members and operations manager failed in that responsibility.
I encourage members to think about this failure and decide whether or not they want to continue having several of the same BoD members and operations manager who were either members of the BoD or a paid employee of the organization be responsible for our organization, the oldest cave diver training agency in the world.
There was disciplinary action against me for what NACD regarded as stealing $193. This disagreement went on for about a year. They threatened me as you can see in the attached document. They were also angry at me for doing my job as treasurer as exposing tax problems with the IRS before my tenure as treasurer. I have attached two scans of documents sent to the NACD from the IRS after I filed the two year delinquent tax returns.
The file kicking me out is too large to upload here so I have linked it at: http://www.cavediveflorida.com/NACD-Kicked.pdf . The timing was always suspect to me.
The words below the line are a report I wrote many years ago. The NACD cleaned up its financial house many years ago and I bring this up to defend against the thinking that NACD disciplined me regarding Shannon Lewis.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I was appointed as a BoD member in January 2006 I was asked to be the treasurer. I suspect I was asked to be treasurer because of my formal education in accounting and the fact I had been the business manager/controller for a $5 million IRS 501 ( c ) (3) not for profit business in the Florida Keys for 5 years, and the fact I had owned and operated a successful dive charter business for 5 years as well.
The first step in my tenure as treasurer was to gather all the records of the business of the NACD. I found no formal bookkeeping procedures or records in place, and as far as I could tell there were none for at least the past two years. There was no way to determine what dollars spent was spent for or what dollars received were earned for. It was obvious to me then that the BoD was operating the financial aspects of the business without benefit of accounting or bookkeeping information.
No bank statements had been reconciled for over 2 years, no investment account statements had been reconciled either. The reports that I found that the BoD had been accepting for many months, maybe even years were typed pieces of paper with bank and investment account balances. No reconciliations were asked for by the BoD as far as I could ascertain.
When I asked a few board members about this as well as the operations manager I was told it was someone elses fault.
The next step I took was to begin setting up the bookkeeping on a computer using QuickBooks, which is a commercially available piece of software specifically for keeping the books of a business. I own a copy of this program and did not require the NACD to purchase any software or a computer for this.
When I left the NACD there were 16 months of financial accounting data on the QuickBooks program. All accounts were reconciled and the reconciliations are reflected in the QuickBooks program.
The NACD is a tax exempt organization under IRS code 501 ( c ) (3). This tax exemption does not relieve the organization from filing an income tax return each year with the IRS. When I began reviewing the records I could find no tax returns for the years 2004 or 2005.
I inquired with board members and the operations manager about these filings and they indicated that they did not know anything about them, again placing blame on someone else. I called the bookkeeping service that had done the tax returns for the NACD in prior years and he stated that no one from the NACD had contacted his office to do taxes for a couple of years.
Next I called the IRS and asked about the tax returns. The representative told me no tax returns had been filed for 2004 or 2005 and that the tax exempt status of the NACD was in jeopardy.
My next move was to again contact the bookkeeping service that had previously prepared the tax returns in prior years and ask him to help us get into compliance with these returns. He asked for all bank statements for the year 2004, and 2005. These statements were no where in the records. I had to call the Bank of America to get the bank statements, this took about 2 weeks for the bank to go back through their archives and get these statements. 24 months, with 5 accounts, so there were 120 individual statements that I needed and also all 120 needed reconciliations to get us up to date for the two years we were delinquent. The billing to the NACD was about $1,000.00 to do this work.
After I received the old bank statements and the bookkeeping service was able to reconcile them they were able to prepare the tax return, first 2004 and after it was resolved we would file for 2005. After we filed the 2004 return the IRS on September 4, 2006 then sent the NACD a bill for $2,412.60 as a late filing penalty which was due September 25, 2006. See attached.
After receipt of this bill I notified the BoD and the operations manager everyone was stunned.
I prepared a letter to the IRS explaining that our current BoD was composed of cave divers with little or no business background and that there was no intention of filing late or of undermining the process, asking for an adjustment of that bill to zero. I further explained that they had appointed me to take care of these business matters in the future and that I am a trained accountant.
They responded on October 30, 2006 and applied my requested adjustment. So we owed them zero dollars. (See attached letter)
Now my job was to tackle the 2005 taxes. No need to re-iterate the steps about bank statements, reconciliations and working with the bookkeeper to ensure the taxes finally got filed. It was the same process, the numbers were different.
We filed the 2005 return and in turn received a letter from the IRS dated December 31, 2006 assessing a $740.00 penalty for filing that tax return. I prepared the same type letter and got the same results. On January 8, 2007 I got the letter from the IRS relieving us of the penalty.
It is my contention that the members of the NACD BoD, and operations manager have a fiduciary responsibility to the organization and the membership to ensure that all business matters of this nature are taken care of. It is also my contention that the BoD members and operations manager failed in that responsibility.
I encourage members to think about this failure and decide whether or not they want to continue having several of the same BoD members and operations manager who were either members of the BoD or a paid employee of the organization be responsible for our organization, the oldest cave diver training agency in the world.
