New York State Taxman In Seize And Sleaze

The New York Post reports:

State tax officials threatened to arrest a Brooklyn auto-repair shop owner and close down his business - so they could use it for an undercover operation, a damning investigation revealed yesterday.

One official, Thomas Stanton, told the owner that if he didn't abandon the shop, "We will take your equipment, sell your assets and put you in jail," according to the bombshell report by the state inspector general.

The inspector general opened a probe after the business owner complained that he was being harassed.

The investigation found that Stanton and another senior tax official, Paul Rossi, acknowledged that they got a landlord to try to buy the unidentified shop owner out of his lease in April 2004.

The high tax state of New York has got a certain sense of class don't they?