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The Taxman's Web Spider Cometh
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "A five-nation tax enforcement cartel has been quietly cracking down on suspected Internet tax cheats, using a sophisticated Web-crawling program to monitor transactions on auction sites and to track operators of online shops, poker, and porn sites. Austria, Denmark, Great Britain, and Canada have joined The Netherlands in pursuing the 'Xenon' program with the assistance of an Amsterdam-based data mining company. Wired News reports that the Web crawler uses so-called 'slow search' to avoid creating excessive traffic on a site or drawing attention in the sites' server logs." The article notes that the US IRS will neither confirm nor deny using similar technology.
The software in question is called DataDetective (win32)
http://www.sentient.nl/
parent company
http://www.smr.nl/
Look to Europe for a "solution" to that: Every website by or for Germans that isn't strictly private is required by law to link to an imprint from every page. Non-private includes every site with a banner ad, every site with regular editorial content and of course every for-profit site. So far this has been very profitable for lawyers who send costly cease and desist letters on behalf of competing businesses to site owners who don't follow that rule. Besides, most websites already identify their owner via the domain name Whois records...
it is worth noting that (in the UK) the tax men don't need to be able to prove anything has actually been done wrong in order to follow up with an investigation - at which point you have to prove that you are innocent rather than them having to prove guilt. They can ask for your tax returns and bank info etc. for the last 10 years, if you don't have it its because you're committing tax fraud... I guess this might just be able to point them in the right direction rather than doing all the work, so even with just a name it might be enough...
I just hope I don't have the same name as someone whose on the make
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
If you detect the spider, you could quietly redirect them to a honeypot full of bogus personal data and useless links to crap their database and make them waste time sifting through plausible but useless data. The generated "customer" names and addresses can even be real, just combine random first and last names plugged into http://findaperson.canada411.ca/ and add the returned names and addresses to your customer database. Voila!
( I was recently screwed by the taxman despite making rigorous efforts to adhere to their byzantine rules, so I have no longer have any moral qualms about helping others fight them )
My rights don't need management.
Wow. Misinformed doesn't even COME close. More like 'malinformed'.
Let's see...
1. First off, VAT and sales tax are two very different beasties (though they seem similar based on how they're assessed against the consumer on the end.) In fact, if you purchase something from a retailer overseas online, you will, indeed, be paying VAT if the locality assesses it. And if you're living in CA and order something from Apple, you can bet your bippy that Apple will make sure to tack on CA sales tax.
3. No, but the government can gather publicly accessible data, and using it, build a case that the data proves that you have, indeed, been a very naughty boy, and present their case to the court, buoyed by the data - hell, that's the definition of prosecuting a case! Now, there is some issue about whether or not the government should be allowed to buy information harvested by ChoicePoint et al. (or even if such data aggregation in the private sector should be allowed), but that's another subject (and one worthy of discussion.)
4. Please, try one of those arguments in court. Just try. You'll soon learn exactly HOW fast one can me hit with a contempt of court charge. Because, amazingly, you're NOT the first guy who thought these ideas up (and you'll definitely not be the last.) And the courts have ruled against them so many times that in the court's eyes, you're willfully not taking things seriously, and penalize you accordingly (hence why you'll now have a contempt charge to accompany your tax evasion.) I'd advise you to take the time and read through this - not only will it explain WHY those arguments fail, it has several of the many, MANY cases involved listed.
Oh, and the IRS is very much a part of the US Government wholly - it's a branch of the Department of the Treasury. All of the other agencies you listed are wholly part of the US Government, as branches of other departments of the executive branch. Finally, there is NO SUCH THING as "Title 26 of the Internal Revenue Code". The IRC is Title 26 of the United States Code, and is then subdivided into ~6600 Sections. (It pays to not just copy and paste.)
(Heh, the captcha is "excrete". Make of that what you will.)
Wow, I thought my Karma would get mutilated, but right now my original message is at +4!
Please watch the video before you comment. It addresses each and every point you have all brought up. Most of all though, actually read the Constitution sometime. It's written for the common man and is easily understandable by anyone who will take the time to read it with care. Pay particular attention to the two different types of taxes that are authorized by the Constitution (hint: the 16th Amendment has nothing to do with it according to the Supreme Court).
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