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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.
If you sold it to the collector for $100 it indeed would be an additional $99.99 income.
I don't trust the government to protect my rights
Neither do I.
Problem is, many people see governments as the source of rights; so it's an uphill struggle right from the start.
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 believe it is the over reach that is why ACLU and Review are both fighting for anonymity of their posters.
It is also a pleasure to a media outlet that lives by the 1st Amendment to support their reader 1st Amendment rights. -- Do you hear that NBC, FOX and others that force user give up those rights to respond to articles.
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.