About 6 months after opening the Shell station, a man came in and introduced himself as an IRS agent. He said they had not received payments for employee payroll tax withholdings and wanted to see my accounting books immediately.

I had been using an accounting firm that the oil company had recommended during training — Williams Accounting, I believe. The arrangement was straightforward: I kept daily transaction records in their template ledgers, paid the employees, did a monthly physical inventory, and the accounting firm picked up all the material once a month and handled all the IRS form filings and payments. I explained this to the agent and told him I would need a little time to get everything he needed from the firm.

He would not accept any explanation. He wanted answers right then and there. When I tried to call the accounting firm he would not allow it, threatening to shut down my business on the spot unless I produced proof immediately.

At that point I had had enough. I told him that I was already losing money at the station, employing and paying people, and I did not need this on top of it. I put the station keys on the counter, told him I was leaving and he could close it himself, and turned to walk out.

He calmed down immediately. He told me to come to the IRS office the next day and bring whatever documentation I could gather.

It turned out that the accounting firm had been filing everything correctly, but the payments were still going out under the partnership tax number from my brief time with Honza at the Texaco station. Once that was sorted out everything was straightened up and I was never bothered by the IRS again. I fired the accounting firm, hired a private accountant, and he handled all my business and personal tax filings until I moved to California in 1998.