Elderly Tax Lawyer Told He Can't Write Off Hookers

A state judge has ruled that a 77-year-old Bay Ridge tax lawyer must pay back taxes after wrongfully deducting more than $300,000 for prostitutes, porn, sex toys and erotic massages. After the verdict, the defendant William Halby told the Post, "I live a solitary life. I have no social life. I needed that release." So he dutifully documented each liaison in a notebook titled "Tax Journal," in case he ever got audited. Turns out that in 2002 alone, Halby deducted $111,364 for "therapeutic sex" and massages "to relieve osteoarthritis and enhance erectile function through frequent orgasm." He argued that the write-offs were necessary medical expenses. But because "significant portions" of his sex therapy was, you know, illegal, they can't be written off. The state auditor also argued that "in addition to being illegal in New York State, these expenses are not substantiated with receipts."

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By John Del Signore in News on September 19, 2008 3:14 PM

Comments [rss]

Karen

Oh, man, I hope Dick Wolf is reading about this guy...L&O SVU just HAS to do this for an episode!

NannyState

It would have set a bad precedent: had he succeeded in deducting these "therapeutic" expenses, the girls who serviced him might have been able to bill Medicare for their time. And COBRA rules do not cover "licky boom boom".

babyhitler

He should have just said they were dates like everyone else who takes a woman out to dinner, buys her a handbag and some jewelry for some licky boom boom down. Socially acceptable prostitution.

zodak

Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything.

+ You don't even know what a write-off is.

Do you?

+ No, I don't!

But they do. And they're the ones writing it off.

dbc

Not a "Halby" ending for this guy.

PS, the pic in the Post is scary!

jnguy

If this worked, we'd see huge write offs for people's cocaine habits.

Shannon

sexual healing, anyone?

Guest

Damn. That's a lot of money to be fucked; once by the hookers and twice by the government.

jibbly

He's got balls like grandpa from Little Miss Sunshine:

Frank: You started snorting heroin?

Grandpa: Let me tell ya, don't do that stuff. When you're young, you're crazy to do that shit.

Frank: Well what about you?

Grandpa: What about me? I'm old. When you're old you're crazy not to do it.