Tax Evasion by Rabbi Emmanuel Rose & His Wife

The dirt. I want to get at least some of the dirt out of the way so I can tell the rest of the story in a natural way, without always thinking about how to lead up to "the dirt". By dirt, I mean tax evasion.

Again, as with lying, it is understandable someone would cheat on taxes, as it seems most Americans do, when it seems "the enemy" is just this non-human entity, the IRS. For some cheaters, it may be a little bit of skewing numbers for their own benefit, but it may not affect others. However, for people paid under-the-table, or domestic workers, it is not just the IRS that is affected. Not paying Social Security tax for a worker affects their rights and takes a substantial amount of money out of their SSI savings, which will be needed at a later date. If the domestic worker is illegal, it may not matter as much to them because they wouldn't get SSI anyway, but for an American citizen, it is actually stealing from them...ESPECIALLY if the citizen is not simply paid under the table, but told to file their own taxes as "self-employed" when that worker, in NO way, fits the definition of self-employed. In my opinion, that ruse is even worse. And what is worse, is when it's a high-profile Rabbi and his wife who pull this scheme and then speak on national television to make social commentary about moral issues.

I had a former boyfriend get absolutely angry with me when I told him I had reported the matter, or was thinking of doing so. I figured he must cheat on his taxes and thought I was just a mean zealot, trying to ruin lives. But what he didn't seem to understand, was that the tax evasion does not just hurt the IRS--it was stealing money from my pocket and from the pockets of their former employees, by fraudulent means.

When I write later, more about the Rose family, there is a lot of good tobe written and some funny stories as well. And, I genuinely LIKED them, er...well, not their son, but the rest of them (their son rummaged through my bags, checked out my ass, and then treated me like a slave and was rude). Laura did nothing but good and made an effort to be conscientous, and Melanie...Well, I heard A LOT about Melanie, from her own family when she wasn't there, and from others when I was no longer working for the Rose's, and she may have been the black sheep, but she had a lot of heart. I thought she was endearing (and, while she may not have made the best social choices, she struck me as the brightest of the kids). Anyway, Rabbi Emmanuel Rose...and Lorraine....there's some good to be said about them. But one area they certaintly failed in is respect for their household employees. And I was not the only one, and the woman before me has the exact same story and was "paid" in the exact same manner.

Where the Thebault's paid-under-the-table, and didn't compensate me for overtime, they didn't really sneak about it. They acted as many, many, employers do on the East Coast. And, in a weird way, they're suffused with such an Old Money air over there, it's hard not to breathe that air and be affected by it. Even I, as just a "nanny", did not escape pure. I remember coming back to Oregon, and my first thought, when I was back in the Pacific NW, being driven home, was, "What are all these used and trashy American automobiles doing on the road?!" The freeway was littered with junkers and I couldn't believe how many! I was used to seeing brand new foreign (sometimes American--GMC) cars on the road. This is just one example of how money, or even being around it, can affect you, whether you like it or not.

The Rose's, on the other hand, were sneakier. Maybe it's because the Rabbi, is, well, a Rabbi, and had more to hide. They did not ask me to agree to an "under-the-table" arrangement (I had later gone back and paid for my share of SSI--I felt guilty--, without reporting the Thebault's or giving the IRS their name even thought I was asked for it, repeatedly), they asked me to file for taxes as "self-employed", which meant they didn't have to pay for any of my SS. So, I thought it was all on the up-and-up. They mainly wanted to pay me in cash. Lorraine kept asking me if I was paying my taxes. She hounded me about it a lot and said to pay quarterly. I had found out I didn't have to pay until the year's end if I didn't want to, so I was waiting. But I lied to Lorraine, just to get her off my back, and told her I was paying the self-employed taxes, quarterly. THEN, at tax time, I got the form for self-employment. I read it. Now, wouldn't everything in life be just wonderful for the rich if the poor were illiterate?! (those were the days, sigh).

The tax form, and a brochure I got about self-employment, made it absolutely clear that in no way was I self-employed, and that to claim self-employment you had to meet certain conditions which I did not meet, and it was obvious the Rose's KNEW this. I realized the reason Lorraine was always hounding me to pay me taxes, on a quarterly basis, was because SHE knew what she was doing was dishonest but that if I went ahead and filed anyway, they would be covered and it would look as though...Well, anyway, Lorraine was not interested in me filing my taxes because she wanted ME to stay out of hot water.

The worst of it was that there was no way I was even close to being self-employed, as I read, because if you're self-employed, you have all these liberties and are your own boss. I didn't have that. I was a slave to that house, and when I told Lorraine I was going to college PT, she fired me shortly thereafter because she didn't want to have to work around my class schedules. If you worked for Lorraine, you were on a chain. There is a pillow on her bed that says, "I'm the Queen" and you'd better believe it. I'm not saying she wasn't charming and delightful at times, and sometimes thoughtful--but if she needed you, you'd better be available. "I neeeeed you," she would say. She needed me for housecleaning, organizing, picking up laundry, shopping, serving at parties, enduring sexual harassment by old male guests at their parties (I'll never forget that one, with her son and the Rabbi laughing with the guest in his advances towards me--basically telling me I would be great in his bed), ironing, making her bed with military precision, cleaning her toilets when she crapped in them and didn't flush, fishing out a jar of apricot-orange marmalade she used on the duck from the bottom of a huge 4 ft. high garbage receptacle, and washing her windows inside and out, by hand on a ladder.

I did not decide my own hours (I was fired when I tried to get flexibility for collge classes), I did not bring my own cleaning supplies, I wasn't allowed to work for anyone else (I let her know a neighbor had asked me to help out at his house, and she said I couldn't work for anyone else when I was working for her because she might need me at other times), and she told me exactly what I was to do for her and how to do it. In fact, she had the former assistant, Penny, "train" me for a week before working on my own. I wasn't training myself. Lorraine provided job-training. She and Rabbi Rose acted as my employer and knew I was not self-employed, all along. The woman who worked before me got the same treatment and had to do the same thing, so anyone doubting my testimony could ask her as well, about the job description.

When I found out I had never been "self-employed" I consulted a tax person, who, I noticed had a Jewish last name (an obvious one) and he told me he knew them. He didn't give me any advice, well, except to pay all the taxes myself anyway. When I went to the desk at the Portland, Oregon IRS and asked them what to do, same thing. So I didn't know what to do, but I was NOT going to file self-employed, and I did not. I DO know I could track down Penny, who worked for them before me, and I also have the back of the checkbook where Lorraine released me from her employ with a single sentence.

For me to pay self-employment when I was allowed NONE of the benefits of being self-employed, was, in my opinion, just not right. I was denied the right to even work for another party when I wasn't working for the Rose's. And I believed it was fraudulent of the Rose's and it was not just Lorraine, but her husband, who paid me and knew of the arrangement. But Emmanuel Rose is consulted by the media for national news commentary, and is one of the figureheads in Portland, Oregon society so of course they would try to conceal this. And I still remember hearing Lorraine brag over the phone to a friend about what a good deal she got on her "help" ("Only $13 an hour and she pays her own taxes!"). Indeed.

After that, I once tried to call Rabbi Rose at his office to ask him about something, after I was slandered by the newspaper The Willamette Week, and he wouldn't return my call. It was then that I guessed someone had tipped them off about the tax matter and he was mad. Who knows, maybe they even knew people who worked for The Willamette Week and were in on slamming me. That was in 2004, I believe.

All I can say is, there are other people who can back up my story.

Now, the rest of the story about the family is rather fun to tell. Talk about quirky. If any family was interesting to work for and observe, it was THIS one. They assumed I was not very intelligent. Once, Lorraine was telling me I looked too thin, and I said, purposefully, "Oh, these pants just make me look longer". I said longer as an exception to the rule in English usage, in a playful way. But Lorraine and Josh, her son, exchanged looks and raised eyebrows and then Lorraine said in a superior tone: "You mean you look taller." Another time I was talking about how I paid my mortgage, and Lorraine assumed I couldn't own my own house (when I did) and said, "It's not "mortgage", it's "rent"". Then there was the time Laura ate off of my fork because out of two forks on the cheese tray, mine was the one with the tines down (I was finished) and she assumed it was her mother's fork because of course, the maid wouldn't know anything about etiquette). She had just come into the house, and hadn't seen either of us with a fork in hand but made a guess from the tray. Her mother told her it was my fork and Laura said she'd thought it was her mother's. I never said a word. I hardly ever opened my mouth. I just did what I was told, polished the silver, kept my ears open, and made observations.

As for my working for them, at least they can say they got their money's worth. In fact, maybe even more than they bargained for.