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Thursday, November 30, 2017

A PIG IN THE “PARLOUR”: Notorious Bay City Property Tax Deadbeats Featured In Holiday Home Tour

A genteel person refers to the nicest room in the house as his “parlour”, and it's usually reserved for company, such as the pastor.

When referring to a “pig in the parlour”, genteel folks are speaking of something more at home in a pig pen than in the parlour—like a prostitute at a church quilting bee or the decision by Bay City's Center Avenue Historic District to include Steven and Deborah Ingersoll's Webster House in this weekend's Holiday Parlour Tour and Christmas Market.

Bureau of Prisons Inmate #49952-039 Steven Ingersoll

The Association's president has stated the “goal of the Parlour Tour is to share the beauty of Bay City's historic homes with the community.”

But only one of the seven historical homes on the tour is a property tax scofflaw: the Webster House. 

As you can see below (click on the image to enlarge), the Ingersolls have not paid their Bay City Webster House property taxes when they were due in a long, long, long time.
One day before he was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison by United States District Judge Thomas L. Ludington, Steven Ingersoll (who successfully convinced this federal judge his broke-ass was too strapped to pay the cost of “a fine, the costs of incarceration and the costs of supervision”), miraculously scrounged enough cheddar to pay the $13,623.54 his Webster House Bed & Breakfast owed in delinquent Bay County property taxes on December 14, 2016.

The Webster House was at the center of a scandalous, corner-and-hole deal (proposed in late November 24, 2014 on Ingersoll's behalf by then-president of the Grand Traverse Academy board of directors, Brad Habermehl), with the bed & breakfast offered by Ingersoll as security for a $300,000 commercial loan.

On December 15, 2016, Steven Ingersoll was sentenced after having been found guilty on March 10, 2015 of three counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion. 

But here's the thing: even though the government estimated his total tax debt between $550,000 and $1,500,000, and at least $2.0 million washed in and out of his pockets between 2012-2015 (years when he did not file a tax return, let alone actually pay taxes), Ingersoll's actual “criminal monetary penalties” were shockingly small. 

Judge Ludington waived “the imposition of a fine, the costs of incarceration and the costs of supervision, due to the defendant's lack of financial resources”. 

Ingersoll was ordered to pay just $10,145.00 to the IRS, and only $11,762.23 for the cost of his prosecution—an amount estimated by the government to be well north of $2.0 million 

The only tour Webster House should be part of is Bay City's First Ward, except all the whorehouses and the Shangri-La Bar were torn down in the late 1970's.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for letting the public know the other side of the story about some of the "prestigious" homes and sharing the "beauty of Bay City's historic homes with the community."

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  2. If he only knew where he'd eventually be several years after this picture was taken.

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    Replies
    1. Only shame for his new lodging 'b n b' also known as the historic "Gray Bar Hotel," is that the taxpayers are paying for it.

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