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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?"
True, but I don't understand why this is such a big deal. You could never mail anonymous letters threatening people without triggering an investigation, why do people think that when they go online they can threaten people and not suffer consequences?
Because they can? I mean seriously, how often does someone actually get called out on abuse over the internet. If I go to someones blogspot and tell them I want to kill them. There will be no action taken. It's not worth the effort and it's an empty threat like 99.99999% of threats on the internet. On the internet your average 120lb nerd can be a 300lb UFC fighting bear wrangler.
I don't trust the government to protect my rights, but in this case they may have a point. Threatening people with bodily harm is illegal, and freedom of speech is not a valid defense. If you choose to break the law, then you're giving the cops permission to hunt you down and prosecute you, "anonymous" or not. (Even if the law is a bad one and the cops are thugs controlled by a petty dictator.) (Iran, et al.) Which doesn't mean that I think anonymity is bad; I just think that you should learn a little bit about the law and about search warrants and about technology before you start your life of crime. (True anonymity is necessary to defend freedom, even if it means a thousand Cletuses and Bubbas can use it, too.)
I believe that in the (implied, non-existant) Internet charter of rights anonymity is a basic human right. I believe in opt-in, not opt-out. A webmaster has a sacred trust that he will guard his users' IP addresses and only leverage them for internal use, if at all. Besides, that IP address could have been used by the subscriber, a child, a wardriver, a cheapskate nextdoor neighbour, or an entirely different household if the ISP made a mistake in their logs.
On my blog I allow anonymous comments and I wrote "(optional)" next to the email and WWW fields on the comment submit form. I get TONS more spam because of this, but that's a service I feel is essential to my readers and integral to the fabric of the web.
If the government fears how people react to facts then maybe they should outlaw news media.
Both the IRS and Kahre are in the wrong here.
The Government is required by LAW to recognize American currency at face value. They have no choice in the matter. The government's isregarding face value of "legal tender for all debts, public and private" is illegal. The government issued that currency (or authorised its issuance) for the face value and require it to be accepted as such so they have no legal choice but to accept it for the value they declared it to be.
However, if he wants to play the "face value" defense, which is legitimate (he should win that case) what he should be charged with is violating the federal minimum wage laws, not tax evasion.
What he and his employees engage in is tax avoidance, which is perfectly legal. Tax avoidance is simply following the letter of the law and avoiding the incurring tax liability. Practically every politician engages in avoidance. Things such as claiming one's standard exemption, creating a shell company and having it lease one's vehicle for business purposes, and so forth. If I ever make the kind of money where it makes sense to do so, you bet your ass I would hire a tax lawyer and take advantage of the law to the my benefit. The tax code is needlessly complex for three things: to keep lawyers busy and make them rich, for social engineering (keep citizens in line by making them accept government control), and to benefit politicians who create hard-to-understand loopholes for their own use.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
True, but I don't understand why this is such a big deal. You could never mail anonymous letters threatening people without triggering an investigation, why do people think that when they go online they can threaten people and not suffer consequences?
That was my first thought, as well: The freedom to speak anonymously isn't freedom to make anonymous threats. However, I disagree that anyone was threatening the jury here. There's a huge gap between "they ought to" hurt someone and "I'm going to" hurt someone. If I say that George W. Bush should be tarred, feathered, and ridden out of the country on rails, that's not the same as threatening to assault him.
If you sold it to the collector for $100 it indeed would be an additional $99.99 income.
Sending someone a snail mail death threat implies you know who they are and where they live. Going to the trouble of a physical cut and paste from magazines implies you are willing to expend time and effort on your threat.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
No, he's clearly paying his employees based on the market value of the coins, not the face value.
Imagine I paid my employees with one dollar bills signed by Jesus, Buddha, and Abe Lincoln. Clearly these would fetch a high price on the autograph market, significantly above $1 (yeah, I know, you're not supposed to mutilate currency). I think the IRS would be perfectly justified in treating these as having a worth above their face value, since any reasonable person would recognize that they are not just an ordinary dollar bill.
He's being prosecuted not for paying his employees in gold, which is perfectly fine (if dumb), but for lying about its value, which is against the law.
.sig withheld by request
What they're terrified of is people going back to hard currency.
Terrified? Please. I suppose they're also terrified of all those Econ 101 students learning about what money is, what the value of an exchange is, what value is. Oh, no, I forgot: that's the indoctrination that keeps six billion people in the Matrix. Except for a few laser-eyed gold bugs, that is.
The IRS collects tax on income. Lots of in-kind income is taxable just like cash. It should be, else non-cash income would have a tax advantage, and the whole economy would be encouraged to seek less efficient forms of payment. If you think that's a good idea, talk to my friend who, in Soviet days, got paid in shoes.
Really, it's too bad your comment can't be scored +1 ignorant. Try learning some economics before having an opinion on it. Or at least have the humility not to open your mouth and remove all doubt.