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How was it legal? He stole people's property.

So, bitcoins are now property that you can steal?

Please show me a law that shows bitcoins are any more real or worth any more than virtual gold in World of Warcraft.

The IRS says Bitcoin is legally property, if you think that doesn't hold the force of law go ahead and try to defy them on that.

According to the IRS's own website all emails that can be considered "Federal Records" (essentially anything having to do with actual work at the IRS) must be maintained and in fact printed and stored. These document are subject to FOIA request and they simply don't have the legal option to have them expire and get deleted.

Internal Revenue Manual (IRM)
1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011)
Emails as Possible Federal Records
All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules.
The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are:
Created or received in the transaction of agency business
Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or
Valuable because of the information they contain

If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Display... or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/...).
An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone.
Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

1.10.3.2.4 (08-30-2012)
Emails are Subject to FOIA
The public is aware of the role emails play in agency internal operations and emails are included in a growing number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Emails that are responsive to a FOIA request must be released unless the information contained in the email falls into one of nine very specific categories of exemptions. (See IRM 11.3.13 for more on FOIA processing). There is no category of exemption to protect the author or the Service from embarrassment.
Emails provided in response to a FOIA must include the addressee, date and time. The address list, date and time are considered part of the record for both FOIA and record management purposes.
Do not delete a message or attachment that is the subject of a congressional, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or discovery request or that is needed for litigation.

Also

1.10.3.3.1 (07-08-2011)
Don’t Slow Down the System
To avoid slowing down transmission of information:
Use Arial or another simple font on a plain background.
Do not use animation, fancy background, "wallpapers," bor

Internal Revenue Manual (IRM)
1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011)
Emails as Possible Federal Records
All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules.
The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are:
Created or received in the transaction of agency business
Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or
Valuable because of the information they contain

If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Display... or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/...).
An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone.
Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

1.10.3.2.4 (08-30-2012)
Emails are Subject to FOIA
The public is aware of the role emails play in agency internal operations and emails are included in a growing number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Emails that are responsive to a FOIA request must be released unless the information contained in the email falls into one of nine very specific categories of exemptions. (See IRM 11.3.13 for more on FOIA processing). There is no category of exemption to protect the author or the Service from embarrassment.
Emails provided in response to a FOIA must include the addressee, date and time. The address list, date and time are considered part of the record for both FOIA and record management purposes.
Do not delete a message or attachment that is the subject of a congressional, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or discovery request or that is needed for litigation.

Also

1.10.3.3.1 (07-08-2011)
Don’t Slow Down the System
To avoid slowing down transmission of information:
Use Arial or another simple font on a plain background.
Do not use animation, fancy background, "wallpapers," bor

Internal Revenue Manual (IRM)
1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011)
Emails as Possible Federal Records
All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules.
The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are:
Created or received in the transaction of agency business
Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or
Valuable because of the information they contain

If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Display... or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/...).
An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone.
Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

1.10.3.2.4 (08-30-2012)
Emails are Subject to FOIA
The public is aware of the role emails play in agency internal operations and emails are included in a growing number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Emails that are responsive to a FOIA request must be released unless the information contained in the email falls into one of nine very specific categories of exemptions. (See IRM 11.3.13 for more on FOIA processing). There is no category of exemption to protect the author or the Service from embarrassment.
Emails provided in response to a FOIA must include the addressee, date and time. The address list, date and time are considered part of the record for both FOIA and record management purposes.
Do not delete a message or attachment that is the subject of a congressional, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or discovery request or that is needed for litigation.

Also

1.10.3.3.1 (07-08-2011)
Don’t Slow Down the System
To avoid slowing down transmission of information:
Use Arial or another simple font on a plain background.
Do not use animation, fancy background, "wallpapers," bor

Internal Revenue Manual (IRM)
1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011)
Emails as Possible Federal Records
All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules.
The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are:
Created or received in the transaction of agency business
Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or
Valuable because of the information they contain

If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Display... or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/...).
An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone.
Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

1.10.3.2.4 (08-30-2012)
Emails are Subject to FOIA
The public is aware of the role emails play in agency internal operations and emails are included in a growing number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Emails that are responsive to a FOIA request must be released unless the information contained in the email falls into one of nine very specific categories of exemptions. (See IRM 11.3.13 for more on FOIA processing). There is no category of exemption to protect the author or the Service from embarrassment.
Emails provided in response to a FOIA must include the addressee, date and time. The address list, date and time are considered part of the record for both FOIA and record management purposes.
Do not delete a message or attachment that is the subject of a congressional, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or discovery request or that is needed for litigation.

Also

1.10.3.3.1 (07-08-2011)
Don’t Slow Down the System
To avoid slowing down transmission of information:
Use Arial or another simple font on a plain background.
Do not use animation, fancy background, "wallpapers," bor

The IRS guidelines on how long businesses should keep tax records for at least 2 or 3 years, in some circumstances (not involving filing a fraudulent return) they recommend up to 6 or 7 years.

The Internal Revenue Service -- Do As We Say Not As We Do.

Good enough?

Instead of offering any sort correct and accurate "signal" of actual useful information you dump about 20 sentences, berating him adding to the noise. You are either signal or noise and you AC rant is the same crap you accuse him of.
http://www.irs.gov/irm/index.h... You can see in the document they are held under FISMA standards and Their exchange was backed up regularly.

You have evidence of this? A group with Tea Party in their name must by definition make explicit political endorsements?

Explicit political endorsements? No. Attempting to influence legislation? Definitely.

From the IRS's page on lobbying:

An organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation.

I've yet to see a group with "tea party" in their name that didn't try to do that. And to be fair, I would expect any organization that has other current keywords on either side of the political spectrum to receive additional scrutiny.

In the private sector.... it is industry standard that enterprises ARCHIVE every message that goes in and out of their system. They do this automatically, for security and compliance reasons, and they have retention policies that govern the destruction of e-mail, so they can always answer legal requests made of them.

It seems like the IRS has ignored standard minimal industry security standards and found a complete end run around records laws, by maintaining a policy that seems to intentionally avoid creating records in machine-readable format, AND that doesn't make anything a permanent record, unless the employee who sent the message decides that it is worthy and preserves it by PRINTING IT, and filing it with the papers.

This essentially GUARANTEES, that if e-mails are ever requested, there are going to be some lost.... routine hard drive failures can cause it to happen, if there was an oversight: and the employee accidentally failed to recognize that a crucial message needed to be kept as a record, OR if the employee maliciously decided to withold the e-mail from the printed record, so they could delete it later at any time they wanted, or press a big "PANIC" button and format the hard drive, before the formal orders came in to deliver records, if the staffer suspected they would come under intense scrutiny in a few months.

I investigated further, and according to this page, what that sentence means is that "disability benefits" are considered earned income prior to age 65. But in order to treat disability benefits as earned income, you have to be eligible for disability benefits in the first place. And as I stated above, that means incapable of earning more than a poverty level income.

Here is a better link

There is the EITC.

Earned Income Tax Credit EITC is available to disabled taxpayers as well as to the parents of a child with a disability.If you retired on disability, taxable benefits you receive under your employer’s disability retirement plan are considered earned income until you reach minimum retirement age. The EITC is a tax credit that not only reduces a taxpayer’s tax liability but may also result in a refund. Many working individuals with a disability who have no qualifying children, but are older than 25 and younger than 65 do -- in fact -- qualify for EITC. Additionally, if the taxpayer’s child is disabled, the age limitation for the EITC is waived. The EITC has no effect on certain public benefits. Any refund you receive because of the EITC will not be considered income when determining whether you are eligible for benefit programs such as Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid.

Note the bolded sentence.

I don't think you ever worked for a bureaucracy before.

Imagine trying to use that excuse in an IRS audit of your business.

But sometimes "Stuff Just Happens."

I think I'll take 50x my deductions next year, lose all of the supporting receipts, and use that as the reason. If it works for one of their Directors, then it should work for me. After all, she's "Protecting the integrity of tax-exempt organizations" so her overall direction of SJH must be indicating a new government directive.

Lerner was an IRS person who was promoted within the IRS by the IRS commissioner

Yeah, she was there in the Bush years as an IRS employee... and yeah she got promoted in Dec 2005 to a post she assumed in Jan 2006 (while Bush was in office) but the position was a supposedly totally non-political post back then. The problem is that the IRS is unionized - and ALL of the government employee unions in the US are associated with the Democrat party; therefore all government employees are statistically more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, Libertarians, etc. In this case, A Democrat was promoted in a non-discriminatory way within government while a Republican was in the White House and you are now trying to say that because Bush did not reach-down into the IRS to discriminate against a Democrat (which you would have undoubtably been outraged at IF he HAD) HE is to blame for her polititcal actions 6 years later. hmmmmm I guess Bush really IS responsible for all the crap happening under Obama - because Bush is responsible for Obama (because he did not sufficiently discriminate againsts him and mess with him years earlier when Obama was in a lower post in government...

if you think any but a handful of emails that aren't sent to or from the a White House are required by the FRA to be archived

Having read the statute, prior to hitting my crack pipe, I see no such "White House" criteria.

You may read the latest revision of the IRS interpretation of the statute here, where you will learn that e-mail — all e-mail — that meets that statutory definition of a "record" must be preserved within either an "electronic recordkeeping system," as defined by the IRS manual and well beyond Lois's broken computer, or "must be printed out and placed in the appropriate record system." Any e-mail communication Lois made regarding the disposition of some non-profit's status would obviously have qualified as a "record" under the plain language of 1.15.6-1.

And yes, we do prosecute people for destruction of government records. Probably not the protected political appointee hatchet-people of the powers-that-be, but it does happen, because it's criminal.

Same here but i work for an insurance company and do searches for legal discovery all the time. We journal everything and keep it forever ( i think it's the same way for most regulated companies now.) It's highly suspicious that they can't find this data. I can find any email sent or received going back many years and i can do it within a week (usually within hours.) either their email/archiving system is completely fucked or someone is not telling the truth. Either way, there should also be a paper record unless Lois was intentionally violating policy. If someone knows anything about the IRS email architecture it would be helpful. Anyone know what email system they are on? I assume it's Exchange but it wouldn't make much difference if it's Notes/Domino (it might actually make it easier to recover from tape.) they must have some type of email archiving system. One other thing. from the IRS's own documents, employees are required to make paper copies for FOIA . http://www.irs.gov/irm/part1/i... 1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011) Emails as Possible Federal Records All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules. The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are: Created or received in the transaction of agency business Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or Valuable because of the information they contain If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Display... or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/...). An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone. Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

Same here but i work for an insurance company and do searches for legal discovery all the time. We journal everything and keep it forever ( i think it's the same way for most regulated companies now.) It's highly suspicious that they can't find this data. I can find any email sent or received going back many years and i can do it within a week (usually within hours.) either their email/archiving system is completely fucked or someone is not telling the truth. Either way, there should also be a paper record unless Lois was intentionally violating policy. If someone knows anything about the IRS email architecture it would be helpful. Anyone know what email system they are on? I assume it's Exchange but it wouldn't make much difference if it's Notes/Domino (it might actually make it easier to recover from tape.) they must have some type of email archiving system. One other thing. from the IRS's own documents, employees are required to make paper copies for FOIA . http://www.irs.gov/irm/part1/i... 1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011) Emails as Possible Federal Records All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules. The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are: Created or received in the transaction of agency business Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or Valuable because of the information they contain If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Display... or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/...). An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone. Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

Same here but i work for an insurance company and do searches for legal discovery all the time. We journal everything and keep it forever ( i think it's the same way for most regulated companies now.) It's highly suspicious that they can't find this data. I can find any email sent or received going back many years and i can do it within a week (usually within hours.) either their email/archiving system is completely fucked or someone is not telling the truth. Either way, there should also be a paper record unless Lois was intentionally violating policy. If someone knows anything about the IRS email architecture it would be helpful. Anyone know what email system they are on? I assume it's Exchange but it wouldn't make much difference if it's Notes/Domino (it might actually make it easier to recover from tape.) they must have some type of email archiving system. One other thing. from the IRS's own documents, employees are required to make paper copies for FOIA . http://www.irs.gov/irm/part1/i... 1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011) Emails as Possible Federal Records All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules. The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are: Created or received in the transaction of agency business Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or Valuable because of the information they contain If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Display... or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/...). An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone. Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

True, and calling the drivers self-employed, which is also a lie that moves more liability to the drivers and in the US frees uber of having to pay benefits etc...

Can you provide any proof that the drivers are actually employees of Uber? To my knowledge they don't meet the IRS guidelines to be considered employees. Note: There may be exceptions for their explicit 'for hire' cars where Uber owns the vehicle in question. Heck, I think it was in a previous thread here that I read about an Uber driver talking about how he was also signing up to get leads/customers through Lyft and Sidecar.

So, going from what IRS says:

Facts that provide evidence of the degree of control and independence fall into three categories:
Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?
Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)
Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

Behavioral: Uber does have conduct guidelines and will drop you if your customer satisfaction rate is too low. However, they do not set hours or even whether any given driver will take a given ride request.
Financial: Uber takes a cut of any ride for providing it's service, but doesn't provide the car, only provides limited insurance coverage, doesn't pay an hourly rate, has the driver/operator worry about maintenance and such.
Type of relationship: No employee type benefits, written contract. Driver can drop uber and work with other services at any time, and of course Uber isn't dependent upon any one driver. Heck, the drivers can work with multiple such services at the exact same time if they chose to do the work.

My non-expert opinion: Uber has a strong case that the drivers are independent contractors, not employees. Signs of this are no hourly wages, drivers must provide their own licenses, insurance, and equipment, set their own hours, can decide whether to take any one job or not, and are not tied to Uber for providing driving services.

True, and calling the drivers self-employed, which is also a lie that moves more liability to the drivers and in the US frees uber of having to pay benefits etc...

Can you provide any proof that the drivers are actually employees of Uber? To my knowledge they don't meet the IRS guidelines to be considered employees. Note: There may be exceptions for their explicit 'for hire' cars where Uber owns the vehicle in question. Heck, I think it was in a previous thread here that I read about an Uber driver talking about how he was also signing up to get leads/customers through Lyft and Sidecar.

So, going from what IRS says:

Facts that provide evidence of the degree of control and independence fall into three categories:
Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?
Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)
Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

Behavioral: Uber does have conduct guidelines and will drop you if your customer satisfaction rate is too low. However, they do not set hours or even whether any given driver will take a given ride request.
Financial: Uber takes a cut of any ride for providing it's service, but doesn't provide the car, only provides limited insurance coverage, doesn't pay an hourly rate, has the driver/operator worry about maintenance and such.
Type of relationship: No employee type benefits, written contract. Driver can drop uber and work with other services at any time, and of course Uber isn't dependent upon any one driver. Heck, the drivers can work with multiple such services at the exact same time if they chose to do the work.

My non-expert opinion: Uber has a strong case that the drivers are independent contractors, not employees. Signs of this are no hourly wages, drivers must provide their own licenses, insurance, and equipment, set their own hours, can decide whether to take any one job or not, and are not tied to Uber for providing driving services.

@daveaitel All espionage is illegal in the country you do it against.

And since everyone in the world in any country, especially banks (under FACTA) and foreign officials are under US jurisdiction, why not indict?

Okay, so let them make that part of the "cost of doing business", like other just about every other business has to do. Farmers also have to have fuel to operate and haul equipment, seed, fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide, and product to and from "civilization", and they manage to do that just fine without my fuel getting taxed extra to pay for their fuel. I'd argue that fuel is a lot more important to the process than cheap high-speed Internet.

Fuel Tax in the USA
IRS definitions for non-taxable fuel uses "On a farm for farming purposes"
You might want to do a little research BEFORE embarrassing yourself on /. which is pretty hard given all the competition but you have won the /. lottery this night my friend.

Something just occurred to me about your wife's company dropping her insurance. Under the employer health exclusion her health insurance premiums aren't taxable. Anything else she gets as part of her job -- company car, life insurance, etc. -- is taxable. Here's how the math works. I'll use typical-ish numbers because I don't have the real ones. This is just to show why it's better for a company to spend money on health insurance then salaries.

Let's say your wife stayed single, made $40k, and had insurance of $10k. The company spent $50k on her, and she paid taxes on precisely $30k (the exemption this year was $3,900 and standard deduction was $6,100, she uses her exemption so she doesn't pay income tax on precisely $10k, most years the math isn't that neat). Checking out the tax table, she would have owed $4,058. In other words the company spent $50k on her, and she only got $45,942 of value out of it after federal taxes.

The penalty is $2k, and the company eats that and gives the other $8k as salary. Now we have $48k in income, minus $10k, is $38k taxable income. That's $5,435 in taxes. So the company spent the exact same amount, but your wife only gets $42,565 value.

In other words they didn't cut their expenses by a single penny, but your wife's take-home earnings went down $3,377. To make up a) the hike in taxes from earning the insurance premium as cash, and the $2k penalty they'd have to spend thousands more on your wife.

And they have to make it up to your wife or she'll quit, because very few people take a $3,377 pay cut and stays.

Explain Ben Carson's audit.

Easy: lots of people get audited, many of them at random. Somewhere around 1% of returns are selected each year. Recent trends show that approximately 245 million returns (PDF!) are filed each year, that's almost 2.5 million people who will be on the receiving end of that damned envelope.

My father was hit with an audit this year concerning his 2012 return. He hasn't voted in 40 years, isn't even registered in this state, and he sure isn't making political contributions or starting up a charity. There's no history of tax troubles, he didn't file or claim anything new or unusual that year. He just "won" the audit lottery. Sometimes famous people like Dr. Carson win it, too.

I don't think you really want to believe what the Heritage Foundation is telling you.

Their premise is that the rich pay the majority of the federal tax, so let's really look at the numbers to make sure if their premise is correct.

According to the Federal Income Tax Data from 2011. The top 10% paid 68.3% of all the federal taxes. So far so good...

What makes up the top 10%? The Tax Foundation was nice enough to tabulate this report.

Top 1% includes all households that made over $388,905/year and they paid 35.1% of the federal tax burden.
Top 5% includes all households that made over $167,728/year and they paid 56.5% of the federal tax burden.
Top 10% includes all households that made over $120,136/year and they paid 68.3% of the federal tax burden.

Using the exact same information that the Heritage Foundation used I can factually say:

64.9 % of all federal taxes were paid by households making less than $388,905/year.
43.5% of all federal taxes were paid by households making less than $167,728/year.
31.7% of all federal taxes were paid by households making less than $120,136/year.

My point being that Heritage Foundation used statistics to make a point that is not close to being factual. Their assertion that the rich pay the most taxes is most definitely false. The first clue should have been when they talked about percentage of income without actually showing the income bracket for each percentage.

Go read the actual Tax Stat reports at the IRS's Tax Stats and you will be surprised how small a percentage people who make over $800,000/year pay.

What does the IRS think about this little financial transaction?

The IRS recently released a notice regarding virtual currencies.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dro...

I am not an accountant or tax advisor, but my understanding is that bitcoins are considered a property and not a currency so users must keep track of their basis and gains or losses like with stock purchases.

For incoming coins the new coins have a value based on the time they were received. The old coins returning to you based on when they were new. For outgoing coins (not including those coming back) it would probably be like other accounting practices where a first in first out (FIFO) system or a last in first out (LIFO) system is used. In either case the basis of the outgoing coins are known.

The odd thing would seem to be that as the outgoing coins are spent its necessary to determine if a gain (coins being paid at a price higher than basis) or a loss (coins being paid at a price lower than basis) is being recognized.

Ex. You buy one coin at $500 and another at $600. Coins are priced at $800 at the time of a future purchase. You buy something for $1,200, 1.5 coins. Using FIFO your basis for the outgoing 1.5 coins is $500 + $300 = $800, and the basis for the returning 0.5 coins is still $300. You experienced a gain of $400 on the 1.5 coins at the time of the sale and that $400 would seem to be taxable income. Apologies if I botched the math, hopefully the point gets across.

There's a difference between income and wealth. The IRS tax stats are freely available for anyone to view. The bottom 80% of Americans (that's a roughly $80k/year income cut-off) account for about 40% of the income, closer to 45% after taxes.

Wealth is the integral of income (minus expenses). It's just how much of that income you're able to save or spend on durable or appreciating assets. A large percentage of lower- and middle-class income is spent on consumable necessities (food, clothing, gas, etc). But a lot (if not most) of it is also spent on things with no long-term value and depreciating assets with negative ROI (movie/concert tickets, iPhones, HDTVs, eating out, interest on credit card debt, the latest and greatest [anything], etc).

Given that income distribution is still pretty healthy, you can still amass a large amount of wealth if you simply live within your means and spend/invest your money wisely. I've met a little old lady who worked in a library all her life who has a half million dollar fortune, a carpenter who works out of a pickup truck who owns three houses. In my younger days I made about $40k/yr, yet over 5.5 years managed to save up over $100k for a down payment on a house. I had to live like a hermit, but it's doable. It's all about how you spend your money. If you're blowing it on things which will be worthless in a few years (or tomorrow) while blaming the 20% of people who own 95% of the wealth for all your woes, you've already lost. Yes the system can be improved, but "the man" holding you down is usually yourself.

The amount of tax deferred income you can contribute to an IRA is not dependent on your salary,

See IRS.

if you made smarter choices, like using a home equity line of credit instead of credit card financing to do your insulation work you'd save even more.

My credit card costs me $80.

I'm serious. I don't pay interest. And no, I'm not on any introductory rate. I simply don't pay interest; I have two credit cards, and I constantly get promos to pay 1%-4% for a balance transfer, so I run one card up like hell when I need a few grand and then pay it off with a balance transfer. $3000? $120. If I have some cash on hand, I just pay down the first card partly before doing the balance transfer. Then it's like... oh you transferred $2500 in March 2014? You have until November 2015 to pay it off. Yeah uh, it's going to be paid off in 2014 (but I stack cash in a separate bank account and pay it off all at once when it won't totally drain my liquid funds, in case I suddenly need CASH).

Trust me, there's nothing obvious that's going to save me money. I'm not aggressively leveraging debt; I'm just aggressively looking for ways to minimize the impact of debt when leveraging cash is either not possible or actively bad (i.e. would I rather have $0 or would I rather pay $80 to have $3000 still on hand, but be $3000 in debt for the moment? Uhh... I'll take a little debt).

To be fair, it's linked from the IRS's website, so you shouldn't need to know the URL or have it advertised to you. But yeah, it's a pretty lame name.

It's apparently required by the IRS's agreement with the Free File Alliance for there to be an unbranded fillable form-type option for people whose income is above the 70% threshold that is set for other free file options.

It's also not the first industry-coalition-(somewhat-unwillingly)-supported website with a stupid name - how about annualcreditreport.com for another?

1) Especially right now, that money wouldn't earn much elsewhere

Agreed, I'm not worrying about it, but I will in a couple years.

2) Fewer things to worry about come tax time. There are penalties for under-withholding, at least in some conditions. Overwithholding a little protects you from these.

If you owe more than $1,000, you owe a penalty. Unless you got a refund last year, or you owe less than you did the previous year. The wording is awkward there. Basically the first underpayment is free, and you get a pass while you're trying to fix the problem. I'm pretty sure TurboTax told me this.

3) I am not even sure if it's legal to decrease my withholding, for example.

It is legal, and the IRS has a calculator for you. Intuit has one online somewhere. TurboTax will generate a W4 for you after you do your taxes. However, I hate all of them. They all try to take into account what's been withheld year-to-date, and figure out the magic number to get a $0 refund at the end of the year. And every single one gives me a wildly different number, without showing their work. Which means they're all wrong, and I'll have to try again next year. I finally sat down and figured it out, because fixing it was a couple hundred bucks a paycheck. I hate myself, but I made the largest spreadsheet of my life using the IRS Employer's Withholding publication. I started coding it, but the publication tables mentally mapped better to a spreadsheet. My HR department wasn't willing to help me, and I can't blame them once I finished. Now I just tweak the W4 number up or down by 1, based on if my refund was larger or smaller than last year.

1) Especially right now, that money wouldn't earn much elsewhere

Agreed, I'm not worrying about it, but I will in a couple years.

2) Fewer things to worry about come tax time. There are penalties for under-withholding, at least in some conditions. Overwithholding a little protects you from these.

If you owe more than $1,000, you owe a penalty. Unless you got a refund last year, or you owe less than you did the previous year. The wording is awkward there. Basically the first underpayment is free, and you get a pass while you're trying to fix the problem. I'm pretty sure TurboTax told me this.

3) I am not even sure if it's legal to decrease my withholding, for example.

It is legal, and the IRS has a calculator for you. Intuit has one online somewhere. TurboTax will generate a W4 for you after you do your taxes. However, I hate all of them. They all try to take into account what's been withheld year-to-date, and figure out the magic number to get a $0 refund at the end of the year. And every single one gives me a wildly different number, without showing their work. Which means they're all wrong, and I'll have to try again next year. I finally sat down and figured it out, because fixing it was a couple hundred bucks a paycheck. I hate myself, but I made the largest spreadsheet of my life using the IRS Employer's Withholding publication. I started coding it, but the publication tables mentally mapped better to a spreadsheet. My HR department wasn't willing to help me, and I can't blame them once I finished. Now I just tweak the W4 number up or down by 1, based on if my refund was larger or smaller than last year.

BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Claiming more allowances than you're entitled to is against the rules. How many an individual is entitled to depends upon work situation, certain life events, whether deductions are itemized or not, household status and other factors. The IRS provides a calculator or you can use publication 505 and the worksheets to figure it out for your specific case. Knowingly providing false information on IRS forms is a crime, but then again you know that because you're a smart ass.

BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Claiming more allowances than you're entitled to is against the rules. How many an individual is entitled to depends upon work situation, certain life events, whether deductions are itemized or not, household status and other factors. The IRS provides a calculator or you can use publication 505 and the worksheets to figure it out for your specific case. Knowingly providing false information on IRS forms is a crime, but then again you know that because you're a smart ass.

The service you mention is only available to those with low incomes, and generally they don't support itemized deductions.

Wrong on both counts. If you go to the freefile link mentioned above, there are two options: "Income below $58,000: Free File Software" and "Income above $58,000: Free File Fillable Forms". The second does not require software, though if you're running Linux, the site might not work properly with Firefox (I use Konqueror as a workaround). Note that you don't have to have income above $58,000 to use the second option. And the list of Forms you can use includes Schedule A (Itemized Deductions).

The service you mention is only available to those with low incomes, and generally they don't support itemized deductions.

Wrong on both counts. If you go to the freefile link mentioned above, there are two options: "Income below $58,000: Free File Software" and "Income above $58,000: Free File Fillable Forms". The second does not require software, though if you're running Linux, the site might not work properly with Firefox (I use Konqueror as a workaround). Note that you don't have to have income above $58,000 to use the second option. And the list of Forms you can use includes Schedule A (Itemized Deductions).

Um, I e-filed my girlfriend's parents' returns for California for free for the last two years. Federal was free both years, too.

Federal costs $5 which is usually included in the purchase price of the software.

No, federal is free. Have you not actually looked at the IRS website recently? There's a "freefile" link there with more info. Apparently, even some state returns are free.

Well if you add the qualifier of "with the IRS," you can't. But the vast majority of people can still electronically file taxes for free through the Free File Alliance (of which Intuit is a member)... there's a nice "freefile" link on the IRS home page that will give you the info you need. I've used it to file my 2010 to 2013 returns, and it works pretty well. Basically the equivalent of filling in the paper forms, except you do it through a web browser, and the return gets sent to the IRS electronically.

Let's face it, there are a lot of people employed as accountants and I guess nowadays, a fair amount of software developers and business.

The people who this simplified "let the government figure it out and send back what they think I deserve" plan wouldn't apply to the vast majority of people who use accountants or probably even most of those who use TurboTax. They're using an accountant because they want every penny back that they deserve. Yes, I said deserve -- the legal amount.

There are already several free tax filing systems. TaxACT Online, H&R Block, The IRS, and even TurboTAX, the very company that is being slammed for allegedly standing in the way of free tax filing. If you are a die-hard, you can download the forms and send them in for the price of a stamp or two (my state forms, seven pages of paper, cost $0.70 to mail.)

Let's face it, there are a lot of people employed as accountants and I guess nowadays, a fair amount of software developers and business.

The people who this simplified "let the government figure it out and send back what they think I deserve" plan wouldn't apply to the vast majority of people who use accountants or probably even most of those who use TurboTax. They're using an accountant because they want every penny back that they deserve. Yes, I said deserve -- the legal amount.

There are already several free tax filing systems. TaxACT Online, H&R Block, The IRS, and even TurboTAX, the very company that is being slammed for allegedly standing in the way of free tax filing. If you are a die-hard, you can download the forms and send them in for the price of a stamp or two (my state forms, seven pages of paper, cost $0.70 to mail.)

Where is our "public option"?

Oooh! He said "public option"! He's a soc...erm..witch! A witch! A witch! Burn the AC! </Monty Python-esque hysteria>

Anyway, if you meet the income threshold, the free software is still out there and though it still has a yearly income limit, anyone can use it to get a tax extension.

Yeah, it redirects you to a number of free choices by the same leech^H^H^H^H^Hfine companies, including the free web version of TurboTax that is also clearly advertised on their website. And if you have kid, or anything else "out of the ordinary", too bad, that's too complicated for the free version, so cough up the dough already.

These assholes have been at this for decades. During the Clinton administration, in the early years of the Web, as the government was moving to online and Gore was still talking of the "superinformation highway", there was a vision of everyone filing their taxes online, which only makes sense. I mean, collecting taxes is what the IRS does, and they had been transferring paper forms into their computers by hand. So online filing would have been a HUGE convenience thing for American citizens as well as a big labor (and therefore $) saver for taxpayers. Not to mention energy savings, paper savings, etc etc.

Enter Intuit. I remember there was a huge lobbying campaign from the tax preperation industry, and some back and forth power broking, y'know-- the power of the free market blah blah-- the result being that the IRS web stuff was scrapped, but for people who were middle/class->poor, Intuit and other tax preparer companies would put out a "free" version of their software. The only thing is, apparently they didn't have to ACTUALLY make this fact widely known to anyone.

During the Bush administration this was the status quo, although if I remember right, the income threshhold kept going down and and down, with more and more people forced to pay for the software...

And so now we're where we are. Why Americans need to prop up this shitty industry with an Intuit Tax is beyond me. Where is our "public option"?

Anyway, if you meet the income threshhold, the free software is still out there and though it still has a yearly income limit, anyone can use it to get a tax extension.

Once upon a time in the 1990s the US wanted its citizens to file taxes for free. The IRS was preparing a system for web-based filing.

That's when a company called Intuit got involved. They lobbied and lobbied, and soon the free IRS system was in the garbage. In exchange, Intuit had to provide a free option for lower/middle class citizens. Of course, they didn't have to actually tell anyone about it. Over the next decade, they lobbied and lobbied to protect their business interest and got that income level for the free software lowered...

The program still exists, but Intuit has been lobbying to keep tax filing hard, certainly harder than necessary. Why have government actually perform its essential service for free when the private market can double the effort at greater expensive for the profit of a few? And stress people out all at the same time?

Fuck you, Intuit.

We already have FreeFile.

The limit of income is as low as $400 and as high as $22,000 for some retired couples. Anyone working and making in the range of $10k a year had better check
http://www.irs.gov/publication...

Not strictly true.

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals...

According the IRS if you run a business and don't make a profit, it is considered a HOBBY.

Why does the author think that the government doesn't (or even can't) recognize that a barter transaction is still a transaction?

The IRS says that barter transactions are taxable:

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/t...

Bartering occurs when you exchange goods or services without exchanging money. An example of bartering is a plumber exchanging plumbing services for the dental services of a dentist. You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering.

I don't see why Seattle couldn't also recognize that the a ride-share barter service is still a taxi service.

The really attention-grabbing thing about the IRS guidance is Question 8 under the FAQ, which reads:
Q-8: Does a taxpayer who “mines” virtual currency (for example, uses computer
resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin
transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt of the virtual currency
resulting from those activities?

A-8: Yes, when a taxpayer successfully “mines” virtual currency, the fair market value
of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income. See
Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, for more information on taxable
income.

(emphasis in the original)
This sounds like an enormous amount of record keeping for individual miners to keep track of.