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Willful Avoidance
Inspired by a true story. . .
Maya Bethany awakes as though from a seventeen-year coma to find herself in bed with a stranger—her husband—who is on a course that will ruin not only her life but those of her children as well unless she does something. But what and how and who will help her? Certainly not the flirtatious millionaire she works for. Nor the jaded lawyer who urges her again and again to compromise with the tax man. No, they only complicate her life at a time when she’s just trying to survive. There will be no white knights to save her. She has to do it herself.
Willful Avoidance is a term in the tax man’s lexicon that refers to the refusal of a spouse to obtain knowledge which he or she needs in order to competently cosign income tax returns.
JT Twissel spent fourteen years fighting the franchise tax board, ultimately appealing to the highest tax court in the state of California, the Board of Equalization. The charge against her: willful avoidance. She wrote this fictionalized version of the story as a cautionary tale. If you think what happened to her can’t happen to you, think again.
Maya Bethany awakes as though from a seventeen-year coma to find herself in bed with a stranger—her husband—who is on a course that will ruin not only her life but those of her children as well unless she does something. But what and how and who will help her? Certainly not the flirtatious millionaire she works for. Nor the jaded lawyer who urges her again and again to compromise with the tax man. No, they only complicate her life at a time when she’s just trying to survive. There will be no white knights to save her. She has to do it herself.
Willful Avoidance is a term in the tax man’s lexicon that refers to the refusal of a spouse to obtain knowledge which he or she needs in order to competently cosign income tax returns.
JT Twissel spent fourteen years fighting the franchise tax board, ultimately appealing to the highest tax court in the state of California, the Board of Equalization. The charge against her: willful avoidance. She wrote this fictionalized version of the story as a cautionary tale. If you think what happened to her can’t happen to you, think again.
193 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 21, 2015
8 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 24, 2015
As an author myself, I know how much time and love it takes to craft a novel which makes me feel all the worse for wolfing down JT Twissel's latest book in a matter of hours. Within the first chapters I came to care about Maya and her uphill battle against a horrible ex-husband and the IRS. Grounded in reality, her story was dramatic, funny, tragic and wonderful. Twissel didn't write what the readers wanted to read, but instead wrote the organic journey of Maya with all her ups and downs. The result is a book with a storyline you could chew on and with twists that kept me reading late into the night! An added bonus of this book was coming away with a rudimentary understanding of our tax laws. Twissel, you're a tricky one. Have you ever thought about teaching the subject at the university?
April 17, 2016
Magical
The last time a written story affected me as deeply as this was the time I sat up half the night reading The Crucible. Riveting doesn't even come near to describing Willful Avoidance. J T Twissel has done something magical here. She has taken a nightmare from her life and invested it with a literary virtuosity that is quite simply dazzling. The protagonist is Maya Bethany, victim in an immoral maze constructed by a soulless state that takes no account of personal feelings or circumstances. If Kafka were still around he would just love writing about this. Except that somehow I don't think he would make me laugh out loud the way J T Twissel does. But after the laughter has faded the memory remains of a driven woman standing against a stupid law and its legal lackeys. This is a beautiful piece of work.
The last time a written story affected me as deeply as this was the time I sat up half the night reading The Crucible. Riveting doesn't even come near to describing Willful Avoidance. J T Twissel has done something magical here. She has taken a nightmare from her life and invested it with a literary virtuosity that is quite simply dazzling. The protagonist is Maya Bethany, victim in an immoral maze constructed by a soulless state that takes no account of personal feelings or circumstances. If Kafka were still around he would just love writing about this. Except that somehow I don't think he would make me laugh out loud the way J T Twissel does. But after the laughter has faded the memory remains of a driven woman standing against a stupid law and its legal lackeys. This is a beautiful piece of work.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews