A Yonkers woman is not responsible for a construction company”™s taxes, a state tax judge has ruled, because her son had put records in her name to preserve assets while he was getting divorced.
Kevin R. Law, an administrative law judge for the state Division of Tax Appeals, cancelled $62,231 in taxes, interest and penalties on Dec. 30 that had been assessed against Eileen Camerota.
The state Division of Taxation had identified her as the officer or person responsible for paying taxes for Brenmac Corp. from 2016 to 2018.
She petitioned the state to overturn the tax liability.
Brenmac was formed in 2014, according to a state corporations record, and it uses an address on McClean Avenue in Yonkers that is the location of a UPS Store with public mailboxes.
Camerota was identified as Brenmac”™s president and the person responsible for signing checks and making business decisions on several tax forms.
She testified at a videoconference hearing last February that she had nothing to do with Brenmac. She testified that she was not a shareholder, officer, director or employee and she had not allowed any documents to be submitted to the state in her name.
The business belonged to her son, John McLoughlin, she testified. Her only involvement was signing a line of credit because he had previously gone bankrupt and was in the midst of a divorce.
When she received tax notices, she said, she gave them to her son and he told her he would handle them. When the state levied charges against her bank account, she hired an attorney to formally notify Brenmac that she had never knowingly acted on behalf of the company.
McLoughlin testified that he owned Brenmac and his mother had nothing to do with the business except for signing the line of credit.
He admitted to giving his accountant his mother”™s personal information to use on tax documents, according to Law”™s findings, “because he was in the midst of a divorce” and “because he lost everything to his ex-wife in said divorce.”
The Division of Taxation acted reasonably when it issues tax notices to Camerota, Law ruled, based on the tax forms it had received. Law ruled that the totality of evidence establishes that McLaughlin “used his mother”™s identity when setting up Brenmac in an effort to preserve his assets during his divorce.”
Camerota was represented by Elmsford attorney Peter T. Goodrich.
