Greetings, Senator Cantwell. My name is Dirk Deppey, and I'm the web editor for The Comics Journal, a Seattle-based, monthly trade publication for the comics industry.

It has recently come to my attention that a comic-book shop in Kenmore, Corner Comics (contact information below), has come under the scrutiny of the Internal Revenue Service, and seems to be suffering from excessive punitive measures by a rookie agent in his early twenties. In essence, the agent in question has decided that taxes are due for the value of the shop's backstock, which he has arbitrarilly decided should come to $14,000; he has stated that the shop must either completely destroy its own backstock by December 31st, or pay the bill.

I am an occasional patron of Corner Comics, and I can assure you that its entire backstock isn't worth $14,000 in total -- the agent harrassing this store is essentially demanding that its owner, Paige Gifford, pay over 100% of the product's worth in taxes or go out of business. Ms. Gifford is fighting as best she can, but as a small business-owner her resources are of course limited, and she faces the very real threat of bankruptcy if this ill-treatment continues. This is an outrageous state of affairs; the demand to destroy her backstock is particularly egregious, as without its stock of back issues, a comic-book store cannot survive. Were this standard to be applied across the board, the entire comics industry could well face financial ruin.

One of the most popular features of our magazine's website is a weekdaily weblog (http://www.tcj.com/journalista/), which is widely read by people in the comics industry, as well as editors and writers covering the general publishing market, for its news coverage. Over the coming weeks, I intend to shine a spotlight upon the IRS's actions in this matter, and I would love to be able to pass along a quote from you detailing your actions on a constituent's behalf. Could you possibly look into the situation? I suspect that given the youth and inexperience of the agent in question, it could well be an easy matter to resolve, were an immediate superior with more experience in such things look into the problem.

You can read Ms. Gifford's account of the situation at this URL:
http://realtegan.blogspot.com/#107119904291697945

Here is the contact information for Corner Comics:
6575 NE 181st
Kenmore, WA 98028
(425) 486-9636
http://www.cornercomics.com/

Thank you in advance for any consideration you can give to this matter.

Sincerely yours,
Dirk Deppey
web editor, The Comics Journal
http://www.tcj.com/

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