The New York Police Department has been forced to close some of its highly-regarded overseas posts, which were opened after 9/11 as a bulwark against terrorism, due to tax issues, according to information obtained by the New York Post.
And retired detective Michael Catlin filed a new notice of claim last week for a $5 million lawsuit against the NYPD’s Toronto division, alleging he was the canary in the division’s coal mine.
In 2011, after 10 years on the force, Mr. Catlin, 52, jumped at the chance to take a prestigious position in the NYPD’s International Liaison Program.
He will likely move overseas and work with local law enforcement to tackle international crime and terrorism cases.
NYPD officers who participate in the program work with foreign police departments to uncover problems that may face New York City, solve ongoing international crimes, and extradite prisoners captured overseas.
The funding comes from private donations to the New York City Police Foundation.
But his Toronto assignment turned into a nightmare, pushing the NYPD to the brink of bankruptcy when it couldn’t negotiate or pay taxes with Canadians — and he claims he wasn’t the only one in that situation.
“They shut down Singapore, Montreal and Toronto,” Catlin told The Post. “They told us, ‘We can’t take on any more responsibility.'”
The New York Police Department recently announced it would open two new police stations in Tucson, Arizona, and Bogota, Colombia, to combat the migrant crisis and the influx of drugs and guns entering New York from the U.S. southern border.
Catlin said the ministry is currently working on the Colombian tax issue.
“I paid $500,000 out of my own pocket,” Catlin, who reluctantly retired last week when the firm closed, said of his income tax in Canada, “and the Canada Revenue Agency says I owe another $250,000.”
Catlin, who joined the Toronto police force in 2001, said much of his initial work there was counterterrorism, spotting trends in neighboring countries that could affect New York.
“At the time it was all about ISIS,” he says, “and a lot of Canadians were attracted to that message and were traveling to the area.”
About five years later, Catlin met and married a Toronto police officer and the couple had a son, Oliver.
He thought the NYPD had a personal income tax agreement with Canada.
But in 2020, the wife’s accountant told her husband he should pay.
He asked his lawyer to investigate.
He said the NYPD has never instructed him to pay Canadian taxes.
“When my lawyer said, ‘You could be charged with this,’ I became nervous,” he recalled. “I don’t want to be charged with tax evasion. I’m not Al Capone.”
All along, he paid U.S. income tax, including New York and New York state income taxes.
He said he was never asked to make up the difference between U.S. and Canadian taxes.
The combined federal and provincial tax rates in the socialist nation of Canada are extremely high, ranging from 20.05% to 53.53%.
He immediately contacted the NYPD.
His boss told him, “You’ll attract attention by getting married and drawing attention to your status as a taxpayer.”
“I thought, ‘Are you telling me to be more quiet and evade taxes? Because that’s not the rule and we should follow the rules,'” he recalled.
Catlin paid $100,000 from his NYPD deferred salary retirement fund to the Canada Revenue Agency.
Since then, he’s paid between $30,000 and $50,000 in taxes each year, and last year had to take out a loan to make the payments.
“I’m literally bankrupt,” he said. “If they want $250,000, I’ll have to declare bankruptcy.”
To make matters worse, he found out the NYPD was paying for his taxpayer representative to Singapore, a post he had originally sought.
“Nobody did any research before they sent anybody here,” he said. “Neither the person before me, nor the person before that. So people went under the radar. I was just the unlucky bastard who happened to have to deal with the problems they created.”
He retired May 16 after 23 years of service.
Attorney John Scola said the NYPD “always demands loyalty from its employees, but rarely rewards them when they are in trouble. In one recent example, Detective Catlin was forced to pay more than half a million dollars in back taxes and will be bankrupt because the NYPD refuses to admit fault and accept responsibility.”
