New Relationships
When Cynthia and Beto embarked on this journey they agreed to share everything. Good or bad. But time had moved so fast for them as a couple they felt there must have been things they missed during the last two years. Beto never imagined things would get out of control so quickly. Setting up People Against Income Disparity was the result of the need to handle the contributions that began to flow. How would an illegal Mexican cowboy ever anticipate that there would be so many “Virtue Signaling” wealthy people so eager to cleanse themselves of the guilt from their perceived racism. Hell, Beto really had no idea what racism was. One evening after dinner Cynthia and Beto approached Kevin and asked him if he knew of someone they could meet with for some advice. Jensen is well connected with business on the Western Slope and he thought he knew the right guy. Kevin referred the couple to an accountant in Glenwood Springs.
During the Morales’ first meeting with the accountant, Dirk Jamieson a CPA, he started by going through some questions. Dirk began with his know-your-client questionnaire. Of course Beto and Cynthia’s immigration status was one of the first questions on the form. It didn’t take long for things to get interesting. An hour into the interview Mr. Jamieson discovered that Beto and Cynthia actually came into the country illegally two years prior. In addition, Beto knows Barack Obama at some personal level. It seems that Obama was able to arrange for Visa’s for both Beto and Cynthia. Dirk felt this was a little radioactive and decided not to pursue this at this time but did find out the couple have two children who thanks to DACA are “Dreamers”. To complicate matters they have a new daughter, Heloise, that is an American citizen by birth. By this time Dirk can’t wait to thank his friend Kevin for the referral. But first he needs to make sure he doesn’t go to jail for some kind of immigration violation. However, the surprises are not over.
As Dirk continues to build his profile on the Morales family Beto begins to tell him about PAID and the fact that he has raised nearly $10 million to date! In the back of his mind Dirk is thinking you can’t make this stuff up. So now he has a potential new client that for all intents and purposes is in the country illegally and has a multi-million dollar non-profit whose legality is in question. He doesn’t want to think about what kind of immigration red flags this might set off. Dirk likes Beto and Cynthia, but realizes they are in this thing over their heads. They wrapped up the meeting and in parting Dirk gives them a list of questions they needed to answer. They schedule a meeting for the following week.
The next evening the two of them sat down with the CPA’s questionnaire. But it was a struggle from the start. Question #1 was what date the Form 1023 was filed and when did they receive their 501(c)(3) approval? They had no idea what a 1023 was. Ques. #2 – What is the TIN (Tax ID Number) for PAID? Again, nothing. Ques. #3 – Had they filed a tax return for PAID and for what years? It was quickly obvious that neither of them had any answers. Cynthia who handled the banking was getting concerned.
Beto never gave any thought to formalizing PAID. Cynthia did set up a bank account for the deposits. Banking in small towns is different than in larger metropolitan areas. They still do banking on a relationship basis. So when Cynthia set the account up she just used their SSN’s. It wasn’t long before the bank began to notice a lot of large deposits. But their banker liked Beto and Cynthia and there were no outgoing transactions so she decided to give them some time. The Morales assured them the money was on the up-and-up. By the time the account got into the million’s the bank was afraid to ask too many questions.
The meeting the following week turn out to be a long one. The Morales’ had never set up a 501(c)(3) nor did they have a TIN for PAID. It goes without saying a tax return had never been filed. On the bright side, other than deposits, there had never been any activity on the account. There was no mission statement, no board members and no agent of record. Even though Jamieson knew he had his hands full he took them on as clients. He told them he would start the process of setting up the 501(c)(3), applied for a TIN and find an attorney to temporarily act as agent of record.
On the way home Cynthia told Beto he needed to quit thinking like a cowboy and start thinking more like a businessman. This struck a chord with Beto and the following day he began making notes about what he really wanted to do with PAID and life in general.
Perhaps I’m jumping ahead in the story, but I am reminded of an old saying:
When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with the money is going to get some experience and the man with the experience is going to get the money. . .
You just have to stay with the story. You might be surprised.
I love reading your thoughts on life, some semblance of reality flavored with fictional truths!
I have to keep reminding myself that Beto is fictional. He is fictional, isn’t he? Enjoying the read.
I was going to name him Frank, but I didn’t want him to get started on the wrong foot. He is fictional but probable not unreal. It will get more interesting. Thanks for reading.