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Anonymous Newspaper Commenters Subpoenaed In Tax Case
skuzzlebutt writes "In a federal tax case reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal last week, a local businessman has been paying his employees in gold coins instead of cash or ACH, and has reportedly told them that they can only be taxed on the face value of the coinage — not the much higher market value of the metal. The United States disagreed, and brought him up on 57 counts of income tax evasion, tax fraud and criminal conspiracy. The non-authenticated comments section of the original article brought a lot of supporters out of the woodwork, including a few who thought the jury should be hung (literally, procedurally, or figuratively ... pick one). In response, the prosecution has subpoenaed the names of the anonymous commenters, citing fears of jury safety. Or something. The obvious questions of privacy and protected speech aside, for the folks that support the defendant (the newspaper is fighting the subpoena), this also brings back into the spotlight the troll-empowering nature of pseudo-anonymous, non-authenticated boards. If they want to find you, they will; is anonymous commenting still worth it, or is it just too risky for the board owners?"
This means that if my employer pays me in nickels then I also must pay more in income tax to the feds as a nickel is worth more then five cents in pure metal value these days.
No, you can go to the bank and get nickles for 5 cents each. You can not go to the bank and get $20 gold pieces for $20 each.
If you were melting down the nickels and selling the bulk metal you would be in violation of more than tax laws.
* Don't touch the envelope or paper without wearing several layers of surgical gloves.
* Don't use a printer that leaves any identifying marks. Most modern color printers are traceable and most older typewriters are as well.
* Don't lick the stamp or envelope!
* Don't drop it in any drop-box that has a security camera anywhere nearby.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"The Congress shall have power ... To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;"
--Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution
Clearing houses pre-date Publisher's Clearing House by decades. In fact, my guess is that this is where PCH got the name. Basically clearing houses were places where banks would exchange all of the checks they received from other banks. Accounts would be settled between banks. As a manual process, it was a royal pain in the ass. In the era of electronic funds transfers and check imagining, this process has become much more automated, reducing float times that some individuals would take advantage of.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Quarters, unlike gold coins, are legal tender.
Blatantly, outright, not even close, missed by a mile, false. 10 seconds on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gold_Eagle
Refers you to the US mint government webpage:
http://www.usmint.gov/downloads/mint_programs/am_eagles/AmerEagleGold.pdf
Here's a direct quote from the first page of this US MINT government issued document:
"They're also legal tender"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Since I previously worked in a company that's primary business was in running (and selling advertising on) web-forums, I suppose I'd be as qualified as anyone to answer this:
a) The default behaviour of the software is to record IP addresses. It's not like most companies are building their own, they're using something like vBulletin, IPB, or possibly PHPBB. I'm not even sure if this is a feature that could be disabled without a plugin/hack
b) Basic security is tied to IP. Just as does slashdot, so do other forums get their share of trolls. You actually don't see it a lot here, but penis-enlargement, pr0n, scams and spam are also fairly common. The IP address is your only semi-reliable link to a real person, in which case you can block certain IP's or netblocks that become an issue, track down users with multiple accounts. I do say semi-reliably as IPs can be routed through proxies etc, but many boards actually have RBL's for known proxies
c) Advertising, which for many boards is the chief (or only) source of revenue, often ties to IP address. Most programs collect statistics by IP, and also other fun stuff like geo-targetting, rotation (so you don't see the same ad a gazillion times in a row), etc
d) User related to locality can be fairly well-determined by IP. If you've got issues where all your users in the Eastern US connect slowly/poorly, or possibly where you have many users in Western Europe but they have a shit connection, then it may lead you to consider adding services (local server, cache, or whatever) in those areas.
e) The last thing I can think of off the top of my head is statistics, which are also very important to many web-boards to see where they're growing and where they need improvement.
And yes, these work fairly well for 95% of the John-Doe users. Most people, even those who consider themselves clever, don't make much use of proxies or other such things to post secretly on boards, which allows the wheat to be filtered from the chaff fairly well based on IP. Until a better method comes along, it's probably the best way.
p.s. Don't use my own board as an example of something spam-proof. It's using different software than I used at work, gets very little time dedicated to it, and the spam-collection is actually something of interest while I try to come up with fun methods of dealing with the spammers.
They do not have point of asking for ALL information of EVERY ONE that posted. This includes Credit Card Numbers, ISP, and Addresses for every poster.
If they tailored request to those few (I read three) that actually crossed the line into threatening, then it is what you say.
I guess the prosecutors eventually got that exact message, because they have now narrowed the subpoena to just two posters.
I don't really disagree with your point, but in this case it's just William Cohan once again being a complete tool. He'd go after your grandmother for assault on a public official if she complained about a tax bill. He's been going after Robert Kahre for years, this isn't the first time. This latest round reeks of vindictiveness over having his case completely thrown out the last time he tried it.
Here's a little more background if you're interested.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia