An Unusual Admission From an Unlikely Source
Did David Berman Unintentionally Spill the Beans?
In commenting on the decision to keep the association’s response to the IRS secret, David Berman offers an interesting and potentially revealing opinion, reproduced below. Whether David intended to or not, he comes right out and states that the association’s response might contain language which if disputed might hinder the success of the association’s efforts to overturn the IRS determinations on tax liability owed. I find David's admission of possible vulnerability incredible.
If I’m reading David’s commentary correctly, he is suggesting that the association's response most likely contains matters that some may conclude are troublesome, if not erroneous. What David is saying is that the success of the association’s challenge is actually dependent on keeping the association’s response secret. Really?
What exactly does David want Sun City Anthem unit owners to understand about the quality of the association’s response? Allow me to illustrate my point. How could keeping something secret actually aid association efforts unless of course the subject matter of that secret response if disclosed to association members would pose a problem for the association? Either there is something wanting in the association's response or the response is airtight and unassailable. If the former, then by all means the board should keep their response secret.
David would have us believe that the association’s efforts at a successful challenge might be in jeopardy if the association’s response were disclosed. To make that conclusion, one would have to assume that David knows a lot more than what he is telling us about the contents of the association’s response. Said differently, and relying on David Berman’s commentary, the association’s response lays open the possibility if not the likelihood that there are disputable claims or alleged facts presented that are suspect or not supported by the evidence. As unlikely as that prospect might seem, David’s commentary leaves open that very possibility, namely that the release of the association’s response could jeopardize the association’s efforts to establish that the IRS was wrong.
One would hope that no one would wish to do anything that might cast a further shadow of doubt over what David has already alluded to as potential problems with the association’s response.
Ron Johnson, 25 March 2011
David Berman writes, Thursday, 24 March 2011:
“I firmly believe that maintaining the Association response as privileged at this time is critical to aiding the success of the audit challenge. It would be inappropriate to have individual residents disagreeing with the official response and interfering with the dealings between SCA and the IRS. In my opinion, you can bet your last dollar that this is what Bob Frank and possibly a few others would do if they received the document at this time. There is no doubt that the response document will be made available when appropriate.”