William Comiskey

Deputy Commissioner of Tax Enforcement, NYS Department of Taxation and Finance

Personal: Comiskey, 57, was born in Troy and now lives in Brunswick with his wife, Donna. He has three grown children — Sean, David and Catherine — who live out of state.

An avid cyclist, Comiskey trained this year for the 500-mile race through New York state, but ultimately wasn't able to make the trek due to a death in the family. He used to commute by bike from his home in Brunswick to his office on the Harriman state campus, but decided that he prefers the rural scenery of Rensselaer. "I find it very therapeutic," he said.

He plays soccer on an "over-40" team but said he's "contemplating an over-50 team. Playing in a 40 year-old body is very different from playing as a 57 year-old." He also swims and runs.

He was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Tax Enforcement in March 2007 during the Spitzer administration, but has spent most of his career working for government in various enforcement capacities. Immediately after graduating from Fordham University School of Law, Comiskey clerked for New York Court of Appeals Judge Hugh R. Jones. He worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan and as Chief Assistant District Attorney in Rensselaer County, spent 10 years with the state's Organized Crime Task Force, and served as chief prosecutor for New York's physician disciplinary board at the Department of Health. He prosecuted Medicaid fraud and served as bureau chief in criminal prosecutions in the Attorney General's office under Eliot Spitzer before moving to Tax and Finance.

What he does: As deputy commissioner of tax enforcement, Comiskey oversees close to 3,000 employees that include audits and criminal investigations.

At the outset of the interview, Comiskey compliments the reporter's audio recorder and goes on to talk about the department's own crime-fighting gadgets:

"Part of enforcement now is a lot of undercover work and we have a lot of interesting toys for capturing voices when people aren't quite aware they're being recorded. We have button-hole cameras and it has been really and tremendously revealing. This year, we've done a little project on tax preparers. We go out pretending to be tax preparers ... we've done it at 170 different tax preparers. Fifty-one of them have prepared bad returns that are just horribly fraudulent. I have some transcripts ... here's one: a tax prepared describes how he's gonna do a 'ho-hum, no muss, no fuss, simple [expletive] return that's gonna get through the system' and he'll never get audited and never get caught. He underreports income then for two years of about $80,000. That he knows. Do you think he knew what he was doing? He was selling our investigator as a taxpayer, 'I know how to cheat without getting caught.' ... We've arrested about 20 this year so far. And there's lots more in the wings."

You've spent nearly your entire career in enforcement, dealing with people who don't follow the law. How do you handle the daily outrage?

"A day doesn't go by when I don't see something that triggers frustration. Here at tax and finance, the victims of these crimes are the honest taxpayers, those who are doing the right thing. And they are doubly hurt by people who break the law. What does government do when there's a tax gap and it's running out of money? The state turns back to the honest taxpayer. I'm one of those people. We're squeezed, or we can't pay for essential services. So outrage, maybe. Motivated is really my preferred term."

What's the goal?

"We recovered $2 billion last year and we expect a similar rate this year. That money is the small dollars. The big dollars come from the deterrent effect. ... I see people in three groups. You have the group of people who will always do the right thing, because that's how they are wired. Then you have a much larger group, who do the right thing because of the consequences if they are caught. Then you have the small group of people who break the rules. Chasing dollars is what you have to do. What we're trying to do is move the little group so you can sway them into voluntary compliance."

"Ultimately, the goal is to level the playing field so that the honest ones aren't chumps."

— Irene Jay Liu