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ST. THOMAS, Nov 07, 2009 (The Virgin Islands Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The V.I. Bureau of Internal Revenue Service is bringing their cashiers and other front-end personnel back to work in a new office.

Beginning Nov. 12, taxpayers will have to travel to a new location in Sugar Estate to file returns or pay their tax bills. The new location is partly a solution to deal with an ongoing mold problem in the bureau's existing offices at Mandela Circle, Claudette Watson-Anderson, IRB director, said.

"The employees who were working in the cash collection branch had refused to come back to the building," she said. "This was one way of getting another place for them to work."

After an August Senate Committee hearing on Planning and Environmental Protection, in which eight IRB employees testified about the mold, more employees held a low-key protest outside of the IRB Mandela Circle office.

Many employees presented doctor's notes, stating that they could not return to the building, Watson-Anderson said.

The new satellite payment and collection office is located in Sugar Estate, at the former FirstBank location next to the Charlotte Amalie High School track. Taxpayers are urged to come to the new office. The Mandela Circle location will no longer house cashiers or other front-end personnel, Watson-Anderson said.

The bureau hopes to have a permanent solution for its other offices before the beginning of the upcoming tax season. The Mandela Circle lease is up in August and costs $38,000 monthly in rent to A&S Realty. The new space is 22,000 square feet and costs $3,666.66 per month in rent.

The Sugar Estate office will be the first of other satellite offices the bureau has planned, Watson-Anderson said. An office is planned for Nisky Center. It will be a combination of collection and excise branches. The project is in its initial stages and the bidding process is currently under way for construction, she said.

IRB employees testified this summer that in June 2008, they noticed a foul odor that made them sick. The symptoms developed into conditions that persisted and workers believed they were directly connected to the Mandela Circle Building.

As employees fell ill, work continued at the IRB office, Watson-Anderson said.

"There were some employees that were still willing to work," she said. "I'm forever grateful to them."

With the bureau spread out in several satellite offices around St. Thomas, should there ever be another issue, it will not have the same impact.

"The whole bureau will not be inconvenienced," Watson-Anderson said. "It's a way of diversifying our risk."

- Contact reporter Ailene Torres at 774-8772 ext. 304 or e-mail atorres@dailynews.vi.

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Ailene Torres

Copyright (C) 2009, The Virgin Islands Daily News, St. Thomas

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