Nov. 23, 2008 — Marjie Jones once worked for the Internal Revenue Service, going after people who didn't pay their taxes, but now she uses her knowledge of the system to help people prepare taxes and deal with the IRS via her business, de Tax Rescue.
"I enjoy helping people," she says.
Jones put in 23 years at the Internal Revenue Service, first in Bloomington, Minn., and then on St. Croix. When she realized that commuting from her home on St. John to St. Croix was just too difficult, she decided to put her decades of experience as an IRS revenue officer to work in a new way.
"I know the inside," she says. "I collected taxes when people owed or wouldn't pay."
She liked the job, but when computers arrived at the IRS, the staff joined the rat race to keep up with a growing work load, Jones says.
The IRS has pendulum swings, she says, with the agency "cracking the whip" on taxpayers when she first worked there. The pendulum later swung to a "kindler, gentler" IRS, but recently it has been harder on taxpayers again, she said.
In her work at de Tax Rescue, Jones does individual and business tax preparation, fills out gross-receipts tax forms, does business payroll, files for people who must pay taxes in both the territory and on the mainland, responds to IRS and Internal Revenue Bureau notices, represents taxpayers at audits, negotiates on taxpayers' behalf if the IRS or IRB say they owe money, requests that the IRS or IRB provide penalty relief and represents clients in tax-court cases.
"This is a lot more fun than working for the IRS," she says.
Jones works out of her home office in Concordia, located just off Route 107.
The 60-year-old Jones and her husband, Phillip Jones, moved to St. John several years ago after falling in love with the island on their honeymoon. The two had gone on a cruise to get married, but planned to spend some time in Puerto Rico. One of the couples on the cruise told Jones that she and her husband just had to see St. John.
After a real estate agent showed them a dozen pieces of property, they ended up buying land at Concordia. The Realtor, Lori Walden, is now their neighbor.
While Jones was busy during the 2008 tax season, things slowed down once April 15 came and went. However, she expects to be busy again for the next tax season.
She sees the seasonality of her job as a plus. Jones can take time out to perfect her other business — she makes pottery — and travel to Elk River, Minn., to visit her daughter, Nicole Christensen, her son-in-law, Kent Christensen, and her two grandchildren, Sheridan, 8, and Samantha, 9.
"And they were here for three weeks in June," Jones says. Nicole was struck by St. John's beauty: "My daughter kept saying the pictures don't do it justice."
When work doesn't beckon, Jones does like a lot of self-employed St. John residents do.
"I go to the beach," she says.
For more information about de Tax Rescue, contact Jones at 715-3425.
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