To celebrate our re-opening and to thank all our friends and supporters,
we'll be having an Argonaut Tea Party!
Booty Pitchers = $8. All other draft pitchers = $15.
Here's Joe's statement (from last night) to Frozen Tropics:
Elise,
Argonaut was closed down tonight because of a serious miscommunication with DC Tax and Revenue.
A few weeks back, a DC Tax and Revenue officer phoned me and told me that three of my establishments owed tens of thousands of in back Sales and Use Taxes.
Because two of the establishments bank locally, I was quickly able to track down every one of the checks from periods said to be owed and cleared those accounts.
Argo banks at Bank of America. These payments were much harder to trace because of it being such a large bureacracy. We knew we owed the District money and had a payment plan worked out with them. But the total they wanted on demand, however, was very high and very wrong.
Even though we kept in daily contact with the Department and even though we were told repeatedly that we were working in compliance, they came any way and shut us down. Even more frustrating, I had told a revenue officer I was more than happy to pay off the real balance, I just didn't want to pay again for periods they claimed were never taken care of. To put it in perspective, my businesses will pay about $3 million dollars in taxes this year. I owed less than 1% of this amount, an amount in contention and got closed down any way.
To make a long story short, instead of dickering with a payment plan, we are going to pay our taxes in full tomorrow. And though I do not like how the closure went down, ultimately, it is 100% my fault. I apologize to the employees, customers and neighbors of Argonaut. Very embarassing. Thanks
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And his follow-up comments from today on Frozen Tropics:
Joe Englert said:
Wow, thanks for being so nice! I am weeping as I write this. It is like we have grown up together as a neighborhood. I am very sad I let so many people down. Again, I am truly grateful for the loyalty.
Growth and life in general is not a continuim. There isn't a constant trajectory upward. Bumps occur and bumps are overcome. We shall survive.
Also, the District Representatives were really professional and nice. It is not fair to blame them. They were doing a very hard job. And we worked things out today with them. Really good people.
