Harold Francis Washington:  

Life I relocated to Tampa, Florida in 1990. I was thirty thousand dollars in debt. I did not file for bankruptcy as I did not want to taint my securities license. I struggled with a store that I started with a partner in 1989, until my brother died from a auto accident in 1991. Up until that time, I worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week. I closed the store 15 days after returning from my brother's funeral. That was three years of my money down a money pit. Since 1991, I worked at the post office part-time. On the side, I sold life and health insurance. IDS Financial, a division of American Express, offered me the opportunity to become a financial adviser. The salary was $18k for one year. After that time, salary would be strictly on a commission basis. The catch was that I had to go to classes to obtain additional licenses for 30 days without any pay. After sitting in their classes for three days, not making enough money from my rented Yellow Cab that sat idle in the parking lot, I let that future opportunity go. I let my life and health licenses and my brokerage license expire. As much as I wanted to excel in sales, it eluded me. Time was not on my side. At the time I moved to Florida, jobs were not paying much. I was earning over $39k in 1990. The comparable job working in the Court system in Florida was $18k. But, I would have had to take a $14k position to promote to that fantastic salary. So, I rented a Yellow Cab weekly, made a decent living, and made my own hours until 1993. In 1993, I began to work regularly at the post office. I bought a brand new house in 1999 in which I still live today. I have written two full featured screenplays and one short screen play since 2000. It is an incredible challenge to sell a screenplay. But, I and my writing partner continue the attempts. We have had nibbles, but no takers as yet. In 2006, I have collaborated with a singer to put out a CD. As of November 2007, eight songs that I have composed were complete with a lot of personal financing. The CD is Now available and you can listen to Full versions of the songs by going to MusicSubmit.com/SamuelBullock and follow the links there to hear the rest of the Full version of songs on the SamuelBullock.com website. I perform as a keyboard player with a jazz band and the singer with whom I have composed music. Looking ahead, if I can get my tax bills out of the way, life should be sweet. Since I first wrote my story here, I was informed on June 30, 2008 by the IRS that I can expect to receive a Tax Levy on wages. At present I owe $17,000 for 2004 mainly as a result of a pension hardship distribution of untaxed income that gets added to your gross income and thereby pushing a tax payer into a higher tax bracket. My tax problems are the result of a computer virus that wiped out my compiled records. The IRS does not care about the time it takes to compile thousands of receipts and reconcile over $100,000 in stock transactions. Do not let those numbers fool you. I had losses. But, the IRS looks at proceeds coming from stock sales as income. The tax payer, not the stock brokerage firm, has to do the dirty work of breaking down the stock transactions into losses and gains. This endeavor alone required me to go back as far as 1996 to retrieve purchase dates of stocks and their sale dates. (Since the IRS is not interested in my sad story, I am telling it here.) I am just an average hard working guy who has a lot of little income coming in from anywhere I can get it. I cannot afford to hire someone to do my bookkeeping. Therefore, it has to be done as best as I can get it done between work and sleep. So, I am spending the July 4, 2008 day and weekend doing data entry using double backup of my records to get my returns done. In going over my records and trying to rush to get my returns done by the IRS deadlines, I have come across lost deductions that could have lessened the amount I currently owe. I am not going to let that happen again and will gather all of my deductions while the tax levy is in place. I am looking forward to post a happy ending to my IRS saga. I live with my wife of 33-plus years. We share our home with our grown daughter who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. Tax Update: November 30, 2008. All tax returns are filed and up-to-date. Spending $4000 to the tax representative. I owe $33,000 to Uncle Sam. So far this year, Uncle Sam is withholding over $10,000 from my wages alone. It will be over $11,000 by year's end. In addition to that, I am paying $258 bi-weekly to the IRS. My hope is that my tax representative will negotiate a settlement to decrease my tax bill. April 26, 2009 update: The IRS owes me over $3700 for the 2008 tax year. Yahoooooo! That's less than one tenth of what I owe them! Hopefully, They will owe me more for the current tax year. Tax levy was lifted. Waiting for the next shoe to drop. April 14, 2010 update: The IRS owes me over $5,000. Tax bill is going down. Paying a tax levy each week. I made over $12,000 less than last year. Losing pay at my job beginning April 24, 2010. Lost income from the post office alone amounts to $386 net income bi-weekly. I am glad that I still have a job notwithstanding lower pay due to lower mail volumes. I will be performing as a piano player for Bobby Hendricks, the last surviving member of The Drifters, and Samuel Bullock on May 21 and June 5, 2010 at the Buckhorn Golf & Country Club in Valrico, Florida. 2011: Performed with Lester Freeman who recorded "Some Kind Of Wonderful" which was hit back in the 1960's. 2012: Recorded Video with Samuel Bullock whose video catalog is free to view at SamuelBullock.com. School I was in the band with Wayne Cobham. I played trumpet until Albert (forgot last nam...Expand for more