VAN NUYS : IRS Raids Business Office of Candidate

The IRS, alleging non-payment of taxes, has raided the business office of Republican congressional candidate Robert Colaco, seizing equipment including computers crucial to his campaign.

“It just kills the campaign for all practical purposes,” said Colaco, who nonetheless insisted he will not drop out of the race for the 24th Congressional District, which includes the southwestern San Fernando Valley.

IRS spokesman Michael Schuler said the Van Nuys bookkeeping company from which the equipment was seized, Centsable Data Corp., owes the government more than $12,000 in payroll taxes. Colaco is president of the firm, but he declined to say Thursday if he owns a controlling stake in it.

Colaco said federal tax agents seized office gear and three computers May 6. The computers, he said, contained phone numbers and other data critical to his campaign.

“We have no way of contacting voters, absolutely none. . . . We can’t even contact our volunteers,” he said.

Colaco complained that the computers were loaned to him by friends and relatives and were not business property, but that IRS agents only gave one of them back to its owner.

Schuler said the other two computers will be returned once the government sorts out which seized assets were used by the business and which were used by the campaign.

He said the IRS was aware Colaco is running for Congress and allowed him back into his office twice to retrieve campaign materials.