An outgoing Koblerville Elementary School student teacher and former teacher aide staged a solitary protest near the Division of Revenue and Taxation office in Dandan yesterday, urging the office to expedite the release of his tax return.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust give me my tax return,\u201d Keith Brooks, who held a cardboard sign that stated, \u201cI need my tax return now,\u201d told Saipan Tribune in an interview.<\/p>\n
Brooks staged his protest along the road since he may be arrested if he did it right outside the division as the building sits on a private lot.<\/p>\n
The Dandan resident, who is expecting some $1,500 on his 2010 tax rebate, said he already wrote to the division a month ago asking for the immediate release of the check due to \u201cpersonal reasons that the division is made aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Brooks said the division did not respond in writing nor did it return the numerous phone calls he made.<\/p>\n
Brooks, who is originally from Las Vegas, said even his previous tax return \u201ctook 18 months to get to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lack of response from the division, Brooks said, prompted him to seek the assistance of the office of the lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to get the lieutenant governor\u2019s office involved. They\u2019re trying to call the division daily but they won\u2019t respond or answer the phone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Being a student teacher for three months, Brooks said his savings was used for his daily subsistence. Now he only has $300 in his bank account.<\/p>\n
Brooks disclosed that he also plans to stage a protest at the Department of Finance office on Capital Hill.<\/p>\n
According to Brooks, a lot of people talked to him or gave him a thumbs-up sign during his one-hour protest yesterday. One woman even offered him a ride to Garapan, he added.<\/p>\n
Asked how long he will stage these solitary protests, Brooks replied, \u201cUntil I starve to death or get my tax money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks urged other community members, especially those with emergency reasons, to ask for their tax rebates and refunds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An outgoing Koblerville Elementary School student teacher and former teacher aide staged a solitary protest near the Division of Revenue and Taxation office in Dandan yesterday, urging the office to expedite the release of his tax return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}