Alexis tried using her Russian again. It was getting better, since she had more Russians to talk to these days. She explained the basic rules to Tatiana. It looked as if there was no way for Tatiana to get a green card, at least, not for about ten years.
Tatiana had a hard time understanding. When she had been married to Mikhail, it had always been understood that she was coming to the US with Mikhail. Now that they were divorced, it threw her out. Tatiana had never thought about that as an effect of her divorce from Mikhail. She wondered if she should have at least waited for the green card to come through, but back when she had divorced Mikhail, that was still in the distant future.
"So if I marry a US citizen, I could get a green card."
"You could, but the government investigates to make sure it is a real marriage," Alexis said. "Not just to get a green card."
"Maybe I could get Mikhail to marry me again," Tatiana suggested, helpfully.
"For now, he's not a citizen, just a legal resident alien," Alexis said. "There would be a long waiting period."
Tatiana considered. "How long?" she asked.
"It could be around 7 years," Alexis said.
"I would be supposed to be still in Russia during that waiting time, right?"
"Yes."
"So I could get a divorce from Ivan on paper and marry Mikhail and still live with Ivan in Russia."
"They could still see it as a fraud. Especially if they found out you lived with Ivan. And I doubt Mikhail would want to stay married to you that long as a favor."
"Maybe. But to help Irina, he might. He might see it that way."
"Wait just another three years and Irina can get you a green card," Alexis said.
"That's ten years! Anything can happen in ten years."
"If you're going to do a fraud marriage, make it to a citizen. At least there is no waiting period. Just the process time. But if they find it's a fraud you'll have the book thrown at you. This isn't Russia. They get really upset at you for lying."
Tatiana considered this.
"You might even fall in love with a US citizen for real," Alexis said. "That is, if your present marriage happens to fail. Anything can happen in ten years."
"Hmmm," Tatiana's present marriage was fine.
"Wait, what about your present husband?" Alexis said. "If he can get a green card, you can come along on it, perhaps."
They discussed Ivan. Ivan was a truck driver. Alexis didn't think that Ivan would be able to qualify based on his employment skills. Ivan wasn't related to any US citizens.
"Looks like your best hope is to wait for Irina to grow up," Alexis said. "By the time she is 21 years old, she can have become a naturalized citizen of the US, and she will be old enough to file a petition for you as the parent of a US citizen."
"She can't do it any earlier?"
"No, to file for your parents, you have to be over 21. It's a common misunderstanding that having a baby in the US will help. It will, but not for 21 years."
Tatiana got up. She thanked Alexis and said, "You speak good Russian. Are you going to teach your young one?"
"I might," Alexis said.
"Do you know if it is a boy or girl?"
"No," Alexis said. "We decided to be surprised, the old fashioned way."
"Congratulations," Tatiana said. "Having children is a wonderful thing."
Over at Deception's office, Laraine, an accountant there, was working on some very complicated and challenging spreadsheets that she needed to finish by the end of the week.
Suddenly, there was a shadow in the door. A tall man in a dark suit and tie and sunglasses.
"Benjamin P. Willoughby," he said, flashing a badge. "IRS."
Laraine looked up, confused.
"The front desk sent me here," he said, as if a piece of furniture had spoken to him.
"This is accounting," Laraine said. "But I wasn't expecting an IRS agent. We filed all of our returns."
"This is an audit," he said.
"Don't you have to give us a warning?"
"No, but I could always issue a summons if you won't voluntarily comply. Then we take you to court to enforce it."
Laraine did not like the sound of this. Her stomach started to churn. "Well," she said, thinking, "I have to check this out with the head of the company."
"Suit yourself," he said. He sat down on the chair in her office.
Aggravated, Laraine went up to Oksana's office. But Oksana was away on her honeymoon, she remembered. She went over to Laura Spencer's secretary.
"There's an IRS agent in my office saying he's going to audit us," she whispered, not sure why she was doing it. It felt right, though.
The secretary got up and went into Laura's office, telling Laraine to wait.
Laura was already on the phone to a lawyer when Laraine came into her office. She waved Laraine to a chair.
"OK," Laura was saying. "Does he need a warrant?"
Laura listened for awhile. Laraine looked around the office, at the photo of Luke, the one of Laura and Luke with their children, and of Laura's other son, Nik, who was Gia's husband, and the wedding photo of Nik and Gia.
She swallowed really hard. Had she done something to bring this on?
Her thoughts were a thousand miles away, when she realized Laura was talking to her.
"Just plain bad luck," Laura said. "Random bad luck of the draw. We can have our outside accountant here or even our lawyer, but it sounds like it's not worth it. Let them have at it and if they find anything they want to use to say we have to pay more in taxes, we fight them then."
"OK," Laraine said. "Can they see anything they want?"
"He has a list of things he looks at," Laura said. "That's what Alexis says. Naturally, he can only look at financial records. Call me if he wants to see something that doesn't fall into that category."
"OK," Laraine said. "I'll do that."
She went back down to her office. The agent was sitting there, looking at some papers he had from his briefcase and talking on his cell phone. He looked up when she came in. She sat and waited. He stayed on the phone. Then he handed her a few sheets of paper. She stared at them while he finished the call.
"Let me see the bank statements and deposit slips first," he said. "So I can compare it to reported income." He sounded like he expected the income shown on the bank statements to be higher than the income shown on the return.
Laraine brought him the bank statements for the previous year. He started looking at them and told her to find the other things on the list. The list was long. Laraine realized he might be there for days. The list said he wanted to see "all your invoices, sales records and receipts, along with your general ledger and other formal bookkeeping records; cancelled checks and bills marked 'paid;' credit card statements, receipts for payments, especially travel, meal and entertainment expenses; loan documents, interest paid, interest received, stock certificates, time cards, job descriptions, benefit plans, invoices, canceled checks, contracts and other business records." "You have several independent contractors here," he remarked, looking at some of the paid invoices.
Laraine felt a headache coming on.
"We need to make sure you don't improperly classify regular employees as contractors," he explained. "Right," Laraine said. The list continued, saying he wanted to see "canceled checks, tax returns (What for? Didn't he already have those?), deposits, business records and other forms; (What other forms?); records documenting state, federal and Social Security (FICA) withholding, Medicare taxes, advance earned-income credit, unemployment compensation and workers' compensation premiums and documents reflecting salaries and bonuses paid to owners and officers of your business"
Laraine felt oppressed. She had realized that audits were possible. She just hadn't realized they could be so involved.
At the end of the day, he said he'd be back.
Laraine had a hard time sleeping that night, wondering if maybe she or another employee had inadvertently done something wrong in the past, and that now it was going to get them in big trouble.
But Laura had not seemed too upset.
Eventually, Laraine fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion.