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FROZEN TURNIP

February 28, 2006

In the due course of administering the tax law, the Treasury occasionaly finds itself in possession of taxpayer assets that it must liquidate. It does so through an auction process. Interested vultures bidders may browse the IRS auction inventory at the IRS auction website.

Sometimes the auctioneer has little to work with. As the saying goes, you can't get blood out of a turnip. Take this fine property, up for auction this Friday:

This fine property is located at 12368 Cakeeater Rd, Barrow, Alaska. Barrow, of course, is the northernmost settlement in the United States, so this would make a great place to get away from it all, as long as you're in no hurry to get back to it all.

Here's the cozy kitchen:

Looks like a fair amount of filler in the drywall, but a little paint and you'll hardly be able to tell. You can't be more than a few blocks from the ocean; unfortunately, it's the Arctic Ocean.

The minimum bid for this fine place is $29,228.19. Unfortunately, the high bid doesn't necessarily win. The IRS auction webpage notes that "This property is subject to a Right of First Refusal of Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation in Barrow." So even if you buy it, you probably will never find another buyer if you want to sell it someday, because the local tribe has first dibs. I don't think this auction is going to do much to close the ol' tax gap.

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