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The Taxman's Web Spider Cometh

Posted by kdawson on from the crawling-towards-an-audit dept.

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.

7 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Re: the tax man cometh by Snarfangel · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess this is further evidence that there are two things one cannot escape - death and taxes.

    Yeah, but death only comes for you once.

    --
    This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
  2. Interesting. by JKConsult · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd be curious to see how exactly they propose to spider a gambling site. Unless you've won so much money that your name is posted on the webpage (like the winner of the Sunday Million on PokerStars), I can't really see how this is going to work. And yes, I've RTFA.

    In the abstract, I'm not against it. Tax cheats are tax cheats. Now, I don't claim my online poker winnings, but that's because they amount to such a piddlingly small sum each year that it really isn't worth my time. If I were to get audited, I'm sure I'd get busted, as the winnings deposit into my bank account, and should count as income. How they go about doing it is the key. If they just use publicly available information such as the aforementioned posting on the webpage, then fine. If you're dumb enough to win that kind of money and think you're getting away with not paying taxes, then you deserve what you get.

    1. Re:Interesting. by Fezmid · · Score: 4, Funny

      Woah, I just saw a big spider walk by, read your post, make some marks in a notebook, and then walk away! Freaky!

    2. Re:Interesting. by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In the abstract, I'm not against it. Tax cheats are tax cheats.

      Why? Why do people so readily accept the idea of "death and taxes"???

      If our taxes actually went to reasonable uses, I'd agree with you. Infrastructure improvement, national -de-fense, international negotiation.

      But no, instead we pay (in the US, at least) a third of our income toward fuck-all. I work so a quarter of the population who could work can sit at home and munch cheetos all day watching soaps. I work so some starving artist doesn't starve. I work so unappreciative kids can get their socialized babysitting and social indoctrination. I work so our oligarchy can squeeze their kids through low-GPA MBAs and perpetuate the lines of power. I work so we can kill arabs who inconveniently live too near "our" oil.



      I can think of few more noble crimes than "tax cheat".

    3. Re:Interesting. by JKConsult · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The amount don't matta.

      I knew I should have made myself more clear. Yes, I am cheating on my taxes. And yes, it's "just as bad" (I don't really think it is, and neither do you, because volume does matter, but we're both accepting this as part of the argument) as someone who sets up shady tax shelters to save billions.

      What I was saying is that I win about $100 every year playing online poker. Yes, I could go to all the trouble of trying to get some sort of documentation, add it to my income, and pay the taxes. Or, I could pocket the $30 and forget about it. I do the latter. As I said, if busted, I would freely admit to it, and would accept the punishment, as I realize that I am cheating on my taxes.

      There is a logic to my position. Part of the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) standards include the concept of "cost-benefit" and "relevance" to reporting financials. The first may not apply here, as it basically states that if the cost of gaining the information (depreciating, say, light bulbs) outweighs the benefits of the users of the filings having it, then you don't need to worry. The second does matter. It basically states that (as opposed to something large, like property or equipment), if you're IBM and you buy a $5,000 desk for someone, they could give a flip whether you expense it or depreciate it. Because it doesn't matter. I consider my $100 winnings online versus my salary and go with the latter option, that it's so small as to be irrelevant. If the IRS disagrees, then I'm willing to pay the piper.

  3. get mining by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative


    The software in question is called DataDetective (win32)
    http://www.sentient.nl/

    parent company
    http://www.smr.nl/

  4. Re:How's this work then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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...