Basics and Bizarreness

In order for a major transaction to take place, certain resolutions, certain signatures, certain documents need to be in place. Attorneys and tax advisers, more than any, dealt with my own final payout from my urban Church. Yet I saw little of the paperwork -- and what I did see, I thought might put me at risk with the law. I asked my attorneys to look over correspondence from Tax Monitor. “That can't be correct”, they wrote. It looked "bizarre". And hold your horses, Thomas, “you might have to pay it back”. Pay it back? That was all the more reason to look into it. I sought a second opinion. The advice: Don't look at what the payout is, Thomas. Just look at the numbers. I said no, I don't think that way. Valentine Associates, then, were “to keep you informed of what is going on as regards the payout that is due to you. Until further notice … no other.” I asked them therefore for basic information. I didn't get it. I made formal application for the same: authorisation, brief, and required signatures. “Hey Thomas, how you doing? Come on over and take a look” was not the reply. Nor: “May we refer you to so and so ...” In terms of the rules which govern such things, they first refused the information. Later they sent me this (above right). You may click on the image to enlarge.

POSTSCRIPT: I have not told the whole of it. I sought a third opinion. The advice was that there "seems to have been a fraud". And a big one at that.