Snyder Faced $90,000 Claim for Back Taxes

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service was demanding more than $90,000 from homeless people’s advocate Mitch Snyder at the time of his suicide, but his longtime companion said that Snyder was not concerned about that and had been hoping for a high-profile trial.

“He was waiting for years for them to come after us,” Carol Fennelly, Snyder’s companion at the Community for Creative Non-Violence, said. “He wanted a forum to discuss the priorities of the government and our tax system.”

Snyder committed suicide last week. He left a note saying that he was distraught over personal problems with Fennelly.

Snyder received an IRS notice June 17 demanding $50,000 in back taxes and $40,000 in penalties in connection with $150,000 that CBS television paid him for the rights to a 1985 movie on his life, the Washington Post reported Thursday. Snyder had said he donated all of the money to the Community for Creative Non-Violence, which operates the city’s largest shelter for the homeless.