IRS Employee Stole Data To Forge $8M In Fraudulent Returns

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IRS Employee Stole Data To Forge $8M In Fraudulent Returns

Posted by timothy on Friday February 10, 2012 @12:34PM from the but-they-love-you-at-heart dept.

coondoggie writes "A former Internal Revenue Service employee this week got 105 months in prison for pleading guilty to theft of government property and aggravated identity theft in a case where the guy tried to get away with nearly $8 million in fraudulent tax returns. The U.S. Department of Justice said Thomas Richardson used his inside knowledge of IRS operations to commit his crime, which was pretty audacious. According to the DOJ, Richardson admitted that within a two-day period, April 15 to April 17, 2006, he filed or caused to be filed 29 fraudulent 2005 individual income tax returns totaling $7,922,657."

151 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

What!?! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 12:36 · Score: 0

I thought I could trust those guys!
In America... by whoever57 · 2012-02-10 12:37 · Score: 4, Funny

In America...
you tax IRS!

--
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Obvious answer.... by J4 · 2012-02-10 12:39 · Score: 1

Crucify him!
1. Re:Obvious answer.... by sconeu · 2012-02-10 12:53 · Score: 1
  
  Send him to Gitmo!!! He's obviously an Terrorist Evildoer(tm) bent on destroying the American Economy!!!
  
  --
  General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
2. Re:Obvious answer.... by martin-boundary · 2012-02-10 12:54 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Crucify him!
  
  Oh. I was going to say "Does he have internet access in prison? Can slashdot interview him?". But crucifying is probably more humane...
3. Re:Obvious answer.... by sco08y · 2012-02-10 14:17 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  Send him to Gitmo!!! He's obviously an Terrorist Evildoer(tm) bent on destroying the American Economy!!!
  Haven't you heard? There's a Democrat in the White House, so Gitmo and the drone strikes are no big deal.
4. Re:Obvious answer.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 15:27 · Score: 1
  
  They are a big deal if you are a Republican who insists on preventing the President from closing Gitmo
5. Re:Obvious answer.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 16:59 · Score: 0
  
  He's CinC -- are you telling me he can't order the troops there to pack up & fly home, possibly turninng the prisoners over to a local police department or the FBI?
6. Re:Obvious answer.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 17:44 · Score: 0
  
  They are a big deal if you are a Republican who insists on preventing the President from closing Gitmo
  The current president tried to close Gitmo, but no country was willing to take the prisoners. (just like the last one)
  The current president didn't want to look bad, so he just signed the National Defense Authorization Act which allows prisoners to be held there indefinitely (which the last president wanted to get that authorization, but couldn't).
  The current president has restarted the military tribunals saying that they are the best way to serve justice (the last president said the same thing).
  The current president is even holding prisoners cleared for release by the military which is helping to keep Gitmo open.
  So I think it's safe the conclude that to the current president, Gitmo is no big deal. The current democratic president (the last time I checked) is preventing the closure of Gitmo just fine w/o the help of the republicans.
  I guess you can accuse the republicans of trying to win the presidency in 2012 to prevent the current president from closing down Gitmo, but there apparently isn't any danger of that (between the current field running against the current president, and the fact that the current president is apparently doing even more than the last president to keep it open).
7. Re:Obvious answer.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 18:30 · Score: 0
  
  Or if you are a Republican who insists on making the President close Gitmo.
  Or if you are a Democrat who insists on making the President close Gitmo.
  Or if you are a Republican who insists on preventing the President from closing Gitmo.
  Unfortunately/fortunately the number of people that satisfy the above 'if' is very small. So it ends up being a no big deal anyways.
8. Re:Obvious answer.... by nbgm · 2012-02-10 21:36 · Score: 1
  
  Put him in an empty hangar together with IT contractors who are not allowed to bill 50% more for Saturday hours because of IRS regulations. Hang pictures of Joe Stack on the walls and leave plenty of equipment (that may or may not normally belong to a hangar) - chainsaws, nails, wooden poles... When all leave, call 911 and attach feeding tubes so he's kept alive. Open the hangar to visitors, while he's still alive. Send free invites to all IRS employees. Organize bus trips from IRS offices to the site. When he eventually dies, mummify the body and include pictures of it in all IRS manuals, on the same page as quotations about death and taxes.
Cheaters by Nidi62 · 2012-02-10 12:40 · Score: 2, Funny

They don't just try to cheat us, they try to cheat each other!

--
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
1. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 12:53 · Score: 0
  
  i have no problem paying taxes. in fact i couldn't complain about how crappy some things are if i wasn't but seriously this makes me angry.
2. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 15:07 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I have a big problem paying taxes the way they are.
  The IRS can go straight to hell. Nowhere else in America are you guilty till proven innocent and due process does not exist. You can be put in jail with all of your assets seized, which greatly inhibits your ability to defend yourself. Unless they really do charge you criminally, you are not provided with a defense in a case where you already guilty.
  Add to this the fact that the average IRS is a fucking retard when it comes to accounting, tax laws, corporate structures, etc. and they still have the ability to outright destroy your ass with their ignorance, in many cases with no oversight or accountability .
  I speak from experience. When you are in an oil and gas state and you can get some arrogant sociopathic retarded fucktwat from several states away who thinks he knows about your industry better than accountants and regulators and incorrectly over charges you millions, it might piss you off. Just a little.
  Fought it in court viciously for over 9 years at the cost of nearly a million dollars. In the end, other people in the IRS were finally brought in to audit it, and lo and behold, they were wrong the whole time.
  Made those fuckers pay interest and on the wall in the office is a framed check from the IRS for well over 7 million dollars.
  Rot In Hell.
  I am not surprised at all by this. Not even the slightest. What I am surprised about is that they don't catch them doing it more often.
  IRS needs to be completely razed to the ground and a new system put into place. No wonder I am big huuuuuggge fan of taxing consumption and not wealth. Not only is it passive to citizens, but a hell of lot easier to understand. Disagree with me for sure, but that fucking group of psychopaths needs to be taken care of.
3. Re:Cheaters by cforciea · 2012-02-10 15:20 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Consumption taxes are not inherently simpler than income taxes. The core reason behind conservatives arguing constantly for a flat consumption tax is that they are tired of progressive taxes and really would prefer taxes to be regressive. It has very little to do with the IRS or your plight.
4. Re:Cheaters by Tanktalus · 2012-02-10 15:49 · Score: 2
  
  You're too subtle for me. Stop beating about the bush and tell us how you really feel!
5. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-10 16:33 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  tired of progressive taxes and really would prefer taxes to be regressive
  Nice straw man there. No, not regressive. Flat. Telling half the people in the country that they don't need to pay income taxes is no way run a civil society. Not if they still get to vote, anyway.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
6. Re:Cheaters by retchdog · 2012-02-10 17:00 · Score: 0
  
  half, huh? i didn't know there were that many people living on capital gains.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
7. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 17:15 · Score: 0
  
  Worse than that, with half the country on the teat, the IRS is running a social program.
8. Re:Cheaters by TubeSteak · 2012-02-10 17:37 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Consumption taxes are not inherently simpler than income taxes. The core reason behind conservatives arguing constantly for a flat consumption tax is that they are tired of progressive taxes and really would prefer taxes to be regressive. It has very little to do with the IRS or your plight.
  I had a back and forth, about taxes, in another thread with a /.er whose rebuttal was
  "The founding fathers didn't institute a progressive income tax"
  The fact is, consumption taxes (and/or tariffs) were enough to support the Federal Government's expenditures for the first ~85 years of its existence.
  Now, a universal flat tax is just a massive giveaway to the richest Americans and a massive taking from those least able to afford it.
  Not even Hermain Cain's 9-9-9 survived as a universal flat tax.
  
  --
  [Fuck Beta]
  o0t!
9. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-10 17:55 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  Consumption taxes are inherently regressive. Even if you manage to flatten them out with rebates, typically the middle class ends up paying the highest rate. Which is why, although I want a flat, across the board tax, I will never support a consumption tax.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
10. Re:Cheaters by ChrisMaple · 2012-02-10 18:47 · Score: 0
  
  Consumption taxes are inherently regressive.
  People who make that claim are inherently liars.
  
  --
  Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
11. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-10 18:54 · Score: 0
  
  People who make that claim are inherently liars.
  What a rebuttal. You're a genius.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
12. Re:Cheaters by roman_mir · 2012-02-10 19:58 · Score: 1
  
  Consumption taxes are not inherently simpler than income taxes
  - I am just going to respond to this, the rest I won't touch with you.
  Consumption taxes are not just 'inherently simpler' than income taxes, they are infinitely simpler for the consumers.
  What does one have to do to file taxes? At the minimum buy a software package and install it on a computer (so must own and operate a computer) and then go over forms, but this means having to pull out various papers collected over the year (or more than one year), receipts, statements, payslips, etc.
  Otherwise all of that information must be collected and brought to a tax accountant.
  Tax accountants must be hired, workplace must be supplied to them.
  When it comes to more complex stuff - tax lawyers must be hired. Sometimes IRS comes in and audits you.
  Then there are corporations. GE filed 57,000 pages as its tax return and managed to pay no taxes to US government as I understand, good for them.
  ====
  Compare all of this to consumption taxes: you come to a store, the tax is either already in the price or it is applied to the total on the cash register. You don't have to keep the receipt even if you don't care about returning the item.
  It's the store that has to take a percentage of its sales and send the check (or electronic payment) to the government.
  Don't need IRS, why? Because it's not store's money, it's client's money, the law is simple and can be understood by a person as opposed to income tax/payroll tax/corporate tax/death tax/capital gains tax/other type of so called "income" tax law.
  I show why income taxes are illegal and illegally collected here, and part of it the fact that nobody can understand the law and even based on that fact it's illegal, never mind the fact that there is no such concept as 'income', it's all profit tax, and it can only apply to corporations legally.
  But saying that there is no difference between how complex income tax is compared to consumption tax is ridiculous.
  All the unproductive jobs and resources spent that are used to file income tax, then fight the IRS, and what happens to people who lose this battle (85% of cases).... With consumption tax you pay it and forget about it, nobody is coming to get you, so if you don't get it, shut up.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
13. Re:Cheaters by wrook · 2012-02-10 20:51 · Score: 2
  
  You are right to say that a flat sales tax is simpler than a progressive income tax (and probably that was what the OP was talking about). I just want to point out that consumption tax can, indeed, be more complex than income tax. If you implement a consumption tax similar to Canada's "Goods and Services Tax", everything is taxed at every stage through the process. It is impossible for the consumer to know what percentage of the price is tax.
  Here is an example. A farmer produces wheat and sells it to a distributor. The distributor pays 10% flat tax. The distributor then sells the wheat to a mill. The mill pays 10% tax (including 10% of tax that the distributor paid). The mill sells flour to another distributore. The distributor pays 10% tax (includine 10% of the tax that the mill paid), etc. What often happens in this scenario is that the person selling gets a rebate for the tax that they paid on things that they sold. This is somewhat complicated, but what is very complicated is for the government to track all of this to make sure that nobody is cheating. Basically, the cost of implementing the tax goes up.
  Much simpler is a flat income tax (including flat corporate tax). Banks withold 10% of returns on investments. Employers withold 10% of paychecks/bonuses/cost of perks. Businesses pay a flat 10% on profit. It is *very* simple for everyone to understand. If you allow no deductions at all, it is incredibly simple.
  The advantage over consumption taxes is that everyone pays the same percentage. With a consumption tax, poor people spend every cent they make (often more, since they are in debt). Rich people don't (they have money in investments). Pretty much the definition of poor and rich. Thus, poor people actually pay a greater percentage of their income on tax than the rich (anti-progressive?)
  The downside of a flat income tax is that rich people/corporations who are used to fiddling the system to avoid tax will leave the country, taking jobs with them. Also, the cost of implementing the tax is offloaded primarily to businesses, which they don't like.
  I've lived in a country which had both flat income tax and a consumption tax. Even though I was poor at the time, I liked the system better than a progressive tax. The consumption tax was also invisible (integrated into prices). Even though this is pretty much the opposite to what anti-poverty groups advocate, I liked it better. It was really easy for me to calculate my income/outgo. My job was advertised with the after-tax amount and my expenses were all advertised with after tax amounts. It is much, much easier to understand what's going on.
14. Re:Cheaters by roman_mir · 2012-02-10 21:52 · Score: 1
  
  If you implement a consumption tax similar to Canada's "Goods and Services Tax", everything is taxed at every stage through the process. It is impossible for the consumer to know what percentage of the price is tax.
  - it is a compound tax, but to the consumer every step in the process does not matter, the simplicity of not bothering with collecting all of the papers over the year and then having to FILE a tax form and not really knowing what is going to happen - will you really owe a tax or be paid something back or will you really be audited and then you are on a 'black list' for at least 4 years, and they will go over the last 7-8 years of your tax returns and your spending, receipts, etc. This is a nightmare.
  Compared to that, not knowing what the value added tax was at every step of production of a plastic bucket is trivial. You see the final price or the final price + a percentage that is tax, you are done. You don't need to keep the receipts, you don't need to worry that IRS will come after you because you claimed that bucket against your taxes or whatever you did, etc.
  It's trivial and insignificant compared to the costs associated with filing income taxes, and especially if IRS comes after you and then you are properly fucked, because the law doesn't exist there to make everybody a law abiding citizen, it exists to ensure that nobody can ever be a 'law abiding citizen', because even the law enforcers themselves don't understand the law (as proven by the fact that only 85% of IRS related court cases have a 'guilty' verdict, so in at least 15% of cases IRS is wrong in its own understanding of the law, whatever it is.)
  Lawyers and accountants and IRS agents and cops and courts and judges and unequal application of that broken law and who knows what else - that's what you get with income taxes.
  
  Much simpler is a flat income tax (including flat corporate tax).
  - what is INCOME tax? I explain that there is no such thing. It's a long post, with SCOTUS decision references, thus I don't copy and paste it here, just link to it.
  
  Banks withold 10% of returns on investments. Employers withold 10% of paychecks/bonuses/cost of perks. Businesses pay a flat 10% on profit. It is *very* simple for everyone to understand. If you allow no deductions at all, it is incredibly simple.
  - are there deductions under your plan?
  Can a company deduct payroll from its revenue?
  Can a person deduct his losses against his investment?
  Just that alone increases the total tax from 'flat' 10% to something else altogether and it's immediately open to discussion and banks definitely cannot WITHHOLD any amount based on investment revenue, who said it's the total PROFIT? Total profit is all revenues minus all expenses at least, never mind various special cases that you didn't address and that will immediately put a huge hole in talking about 'simplicity'.
  There is no simplicity at all with taxing work.
  
  The advantage over consumption taxes is that everyone pays the same percentage. With a consumption tax, poor people spend every cent they make (often more, since they are in debt). Rich people don't (they have money in investments). Pretty much the definition of poor and rich. Thus, poor people actually pay a greater percentage of their income on tax than the rich (anti-progressive?)
  - huge problem with socialists is that they don't understand economics at all.
  Any amount of money that is not spent is re-invested, and it is not government, that creates wealth and real jobs as a consequence of trying to make a buck, it's private enterprise.
  Society needs as little government as humanly possible because any amount allocated to the government is the amount that is not used to grow the economy and growth of economy is not some esoteric useless concept, it's what allows us to a
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
15. Re:Cheaters by roman_mir · 2012-02-10 22:17 · Score: 1
  
  Correction:
  
  ... but on production side they would still be untouched and the government couldn't grow based on percentage of their production and work, only on percentage of what they are willing to spend on taxable goods.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
16. Re:Cheaters by TheRaven64 · 2012-02-10 23:00 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  No, they're people with a basic grasp of economics. A person earning minimum wage has to spend all, or close to all, of their income on things that will be taxed with a consumption tax. A person with a comfortable middle class income will be able to spend maybe half of their income on taxable things and invest the rest. A wealthy person only spends a tiny fraction of their income. Therefore, the poorest a person is the higher a percentage of their income is paid with a consumption tax.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
17. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 01:09 · Score: 0
  
  you're out of your f-ing mind.
18. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 02:00 · Score: 0
  
  I have a big problem paying taxes the way they are.
  
  The IRS can go straight to hell. Nowhere else in America are you guilty till proven innocent and due process does not exist.
  Not Just the IRS. The media does it all the time to anyone the please.
19. Re:Cheaters by fafaforza · 2012-02-11 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  What do these poor people spend their money on that they'd be paying more in taxes? Food from groceries is exempt from taxes in many areas, as is clothing below a certain amount. Why couldn't other necessities be added to the list in a consumption tax system?
20. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 02:28 · Score: 2
  
  Consumption taxes are inherently regressive
  No, they are inherently flat. Or, are you saying that a person who earns $50k a year is going to pay (for example) $1 in sales tax on package of toilet paper, but a rich guy is only going to pay $0.50 when he buys it? Does the rich guy get a discount on his toilet paper sales tax because he just paid a big pile of sales tax when he bought the fancier car, or services from a more expensive wedding photographer?
  
  Or are you thinking of a sales tax as an income tax, and you're calling it "regressive" because that $1 in tax is a higher percentage of a poorer guy's annual income? If that's your take on it, then why aren't you complaining about the fact that vegetable prices are regressive? And that the price on a pair of shoes is regressive? If the fact that the cost of being alive is "regressive," then why aren't you proposing to confiscate the earnings of all people who make more than the next guy, and spreading it around so that each and every product and service (including the cost of running a government, buying some carrots, and going to a soccer game) hits everyone's net bottom line exactly the same at the end of the year? Wouldn't that be more fair? At least a few stupid chumps would still wake up every morning with a work ethic and produce things despite being slaves to such a system, so things shouldn't get too bad.
  
  Or do you see government as something that everyone should get to control through their votes, but which only some people should have to pay to run?
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
21. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 02:36 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  i didn't know there were that many people living on capital gains.
  OK, so you hate people who've risked money making investments. We get that. But do you really think everyone else is so stupid to think you're saying anything of substance? Roughly 50% of the population earns money below the rate that the Congress has set as meaning they owe incomes taxes, and many of them receive "refunds" on money they don't even pay. They don't pay income taxes, they pay negative income taxes. A small number of rich people pay the vast majority of the country's income taxes, and middle class people pay the bits that are left over. The other half of people pay none. Of course you know that, and you're a troll.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
22. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 02:45 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  A wealthy person only spends a tiny fraction of their income.
  And when they do, it's on stuff that is taxed much more aggressively than things like rent, food, and utilities. The rich guy is also paying, usually, mammoth amounts of property tax, and will usually have a very large chunk of his assets gobbled up as a death tax.
  
  If you're worried about percentages, why aren't you proposing that all of the other things in life - not just the cost of having a government - are also "regressive" in the way you've chosed to describe things? A bag of chips at the store is also regressively priced, relative to income, isn't it? Outrageous! Unfair!
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
23. Re:Cheaters by GNU(slash)Nickname · 2012-02-11 03:23 · Score: 2
  
  If you implement a consumption tax similar to Canada's "Goods and Services Tax", everything is taxed at every stage through the process. It is impossible for the consumer to know what percentage of the price is tax.
  Here is an example. A farmer produces wheat and sells it to a distributor. The distributor pays 10% flat tax. The distributor then sells the wheat to a mill. The mill pays 10% tax (including 10% of tax that the distributor paid). The mill sells flour to another distributor. The distributor pays 10% tax (including 10% of the tax that the mill paid), etc.
  GST is not a compound tax, it's a value added tax. Every bill that I pay gets split into two accounts - a "GST paid" asset account and an expense account. Every invoice I collect is split to a revenue account and a "GST collected" liability account. At the end of the period, I simply remit the difference between the two GST accounts.
  Here's my example. Let's say a white box supplier buys $400 worth of components and sells me a $500 computer. They collect $25 GST from me, pay $20 to their supplier, and remit $5 to the government. (Let's ignore import/export issues for now and assume that the original supplier remits the entire $20.)
  Now I take that computer, install Linux, slap my brand on it, deliver it, set it up, and feed your dog while I'm there. I charge you $700 + $35 GST, When I file my return, I remit the net GST of $10 as well. So a total of $35 in GST was remitted to the government from the supply chain, which is exactly what you paid.
  If you were a GST registrant and decided to sell that computer along, but only got $600 for it, you would be able to claim a refund of $5 ($35-$30, or 5% of $700-$600) as well. If that was your only sale in a reporting period, you would actually get a $5 cheque (well, direct deposit) from Revenue Canada.
  
  What often happens in this scenario is that the person selling gets a rebate for the tax that they paid on things that they sold. This is somewhat complicated, but what is very complicated is for the government to track all of this to make sure that nobody is cheating.
  Actually, GST has definite advantages in that regard. Invoices must clearly show the amount of GST charged and the registrant number, so an audit has a good paper trail to start from. And business are motivated to collect GST so that they can recover their input credits. It's also easy to cross reference to your income tax return as well - if you aren't remitting about 5% of your gross profit, a red flag goes up.
24. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 05:44 · Score: 1
  
  Ideally there would be no taxes, but they are a necessary evil for reasons better left for another day. It's regressive because poor people pay a higher percentage of their income to the government under a consumption tax. It imposes a greater burden on the poor then it does on the rich. That is basically the definition of a regressive tax.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
25. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  In places where this kind of system is set in place, where adjustments are made to help the poor, it ends up that the middle class pay a higher percentage of their income as tax than anyone else. Which isn't fair either.
  
  This has happened in every place I know of that has tried it.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
26. Re:Cheaters by Adaeniel · 2012-02-11 06:37 · Score: 0
  
  Food from groceries is exempt from taxes in many areas, as is clothing below a certain amount.
  19 out of 50 of the states tax groceries and 40 out of 45 of the states that implement a sales tax do not exempt clothing.
27. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 06:41 · Score: 0
  
  Agreed. No representation without taxation. No vote for wards of the State.
28. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  A flat tax is a "giveaway" to the rich only if you assume the income of the rich is not really theirs, but belongs to the state. If the product of one's productivity really belongs to the state, then the individual earning that income also is deemed owned by the state. Modern slavery. This is certainly how the messiah sees it and what he means by fundamentally changing America.
29. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  Real regression would be poorer people paying more tax per dollar they earn (we call today's "progessive" tax rates progressive because the rate goes up per dollar earned). A flat tax is not regressive, it's flat. There's nothing regressive about everyone paying, say, the same ten cents on every dollar they earn or spend. No more than there is something regressive about everyone paying the same price for a gallon of skim milk.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
30. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 07:01 · Score: 1
  
  So it doesn't bother you that poor people pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes? You're ok with that? Because it really sounds like that's what you're saying.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
31. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 07:01 · Score: 0
  
  it ends up that the middle class pay a higher percentage of their income as tax than anyone else.
  As opposed to the way it is now?
32. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 07:21 · Score: 2
  
  So it doesn't bother you that poor people pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes?
  You mean right now? They do not, because they don't pay any income taxes. Do you mean in flat tax scenario? No, it doesn't bother me any more than the fact that they also continue to pay (as they do now) a higher percentage of their income for shoes and socks, would also pay a higher percentage of their income for the services of a plumber, and would pay a higher percentage of their income for the services of their government. This is also true if you compare somone making $100k a year to someone making $200k a year.
  
  The situation is that the less money you make, the bigger a percentage of your income that all of your costs represent. Period.
  
  So, let's talk about what you're really complaining about: you don't like the fact that some people make more money than other people.
  
  You're ok with that?
  Let's turn is around. Let's say that you and I have the same job, work the same number of hours, earn the same paycheck, and pay the same taxes. So far so good, right? Now, let's say that I like to take my weekends to enjoy time with my family, pursue a hobby, relax, etc. Great! But let's say that you spend your weekend putting in 20 hours towards a second job or running a small business on the side. Maybe you sell hotdogs on the street, maybe you're a fine artist producing expensive paintings - doesn't matter. But all the sudden, your tax bracket jumps (to satisfy those who think that progressive rates are a good thing).
  
  Now, you go back to work on Monday, right next to me. We continue to earn the same paycheck. But now, I get to keep more of that paycheck than you do. Why? Because you're working harder, and you are punished by the progressive tax code for doing so. You take it on yourself to generate extra income and put in the time to do so, but out of every dollar you earn standing right next to me doing the same thing, you must surrender more of it indirectly to me because your higher tax rate is being used to subsidize my lower one. Thanks for working extra hard, phantomfive, so that you can pay some of my taxes for me!
  
  Sounds good? Because it really sounds like that's what you're saying.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
33. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 08:16 · Score: 1
  
  So, let's talk about what you're really complaining about: you don't like the fact that some people make more money than other people.
  No, I think those who make more money should pay an equal or higher percentage of their income in taxes. You clearly disagree. In fact, I think that you are a moron for thinking that poorer people should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. Life has already given them a harder time without the government needing to pile on too.
  
  Fortunately your ideas are not going anywhere politically. Unfortunately, ideas like yours give flat tax a bad name, because people associate it with regressive sales tax, whereas it could easily be done as a progressive (or equal) income tax, with huge benefits to the country overall.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
34. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  I think that you are a moron for thinking that poorer people should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes.
  I don't. I think they should pay exactly the same rate on the dollars they earn as everyone else. But since you insist on looking at it in terms of their overall cash pulled in, rather than as a function of each dollar earned ... do you think it's fair that a set of tires costs poorer people a greater portion of their annual income? Be specific.
  
  I think those who make more money should pay an equal or higher percentage of their income in taxes
  Which is it? Address the scenario I described. Should we two people, working the same job and generating exactly the same pay from that job, get different amounts of money taken as taxes from the SAME amount of income from that job, because one of us has chosen to work a second job, also? Please provide your moral reasoning for making the guy who works an extra twenty hours a week subsidize (through paying a higher rate per dollar) the lower tax rates of the guy who chooses to work only forty hours a week. Be specific in your justification for taking more of each dollar that the harder worker earns.
  
  people associate it with regressive sales tax
  Except that there's nothing regressive at all about a flat tax. It's flat. The only reason people falsely trot out that word ("regressive") is because in their desparation to leverage the politics of class envy and villanizing anyone who makes more money, they use that cartoonish nonsense (including the "anything not Progressive is Regressive meme) to fuel the irrational vitriol they use to buy votes from the don't-pay-taxes demographic.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
35. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Except that there's nothing regressive at all about a flat tax. It's flat.
  If poor people pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes, then it's regressive, even if you choose the name 'flat'. Sorry if you're too dumb to pick up that idea.
  
  Please provide your moral reasoning for making the guy who works an extra twenty hours a week subsidize (through paying a higher rate per dollar) the lower tax rates of the guy who chooses to work only forty hours a week. Be specific in your justification for taking more of each dollar that the harder worker earns.
  Do you understand how tax brackets work? Both people pay the same amount of tax on the first part of their income.
  
  My point is consumption taxes are regressive. My point wasn't that all other tax systems are fair.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
36. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  If poor people pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes, then it's regressive
  How is paying 10% of your income regressive (relative to someone else, who makes more, who also pays 10% - but a lot more dollars)? You're still not being the least bit clear on this. 10% is 10%. A regressive tax rate would be a higher number the less you make.
  
  Do you understand how tax brackets work?
  Yes, though you seem to be avoiding the topic. If you work harder and make more money, more of every dollar you make is taken as taxes. That is a progressive tax system. The rate per dollar of income goes up as a function of the number of dollars you earn. A regressive tax plan would do the opposite, increasing the per-dollar rate as income goes down. A flat income tax does neither of those things. You pay exactly the same rate regardless of your income (though as a side effect, high earners pay wildly more taxes in actual dollars).
  
  Both people pay the same amount of tax on the first part of their income.
  What absurd sophistry. There is no "part" of your income. You pay based on your entire annual earnings. Period. The guy who worked the extra hours pays a higher rate. With a flat tax, he would pay more dollars than the guy who worked less, but they would still be paying the same rate. Just like they would if they were paying a flat rate consumption tax. The difference there is that the guy who chooses to consume less pays less taxes.
  
  My point is consumption taxes are regressive.
  If that's your point, then your real point is that the cost of living is regressive. Which is nonsense. Consumptions taxes that deliberately target something that only poor people buy? That might be considered regressive. But consumpation taxes that collect the same fee per dollar spend no matter who spends that dollar? That's flat. It neither favors nor punishes anyone. What it does do is include everyone - as opposed to our current system, which for political reasons rewards millions of people with having their taxes paid by other people who are punished for their ability to pay more.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
37. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 17:16 · Score: 1
  
  How is paying 10% of your income regressive (relative to someone else, who makes more, who also pays 10% - but a lot more dollars)?
  
  That's not regressive. It's not what I said, either. I said, "If poor people pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes, then it's regressive." Which IS regressive.
  
  Yes, though you seem to be avoiding the topic. If you work harder and make more money, more of every dollar you make is taken as taxes.
  No, you are wrong. Check it out. In the US, no one pays any taxes on the first $5,800 they earn. It doesn't matter how much they make, the first $5,800 are tax free. That is the first bracket (because of the standard deduction). After that, the next bracket they pay 10%, etc. No wonder you are confused.
  
  What absurd sophistry. There is no "part" of your income. You pay based on your entire annual earnings. Period. The guy who worked the extra hours pays a higher rate.
  
  Are you always so adamant about things when you are wrong?
  
  But consumpation taxes that collect the same fee per dollar spend no matter who spends that dollar?
  Rich people tend to only spend a small portion of their income, they invest the rest. Poor people tend to spend all of their money just to survive (or because they don't know how to save). Which is why they have a higher burden, as a percentage of their income.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
38. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-12 01:09 · Score: 1
  
  I said, "If poor people pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes, then it's regressive."
  
  You keep saying that, but you keep skipping over pointing out the part where anyone has proposed a higher income tax rate for someone making, say, $20k a year than for someone making $55k or $250k a year. In what scenario, current or proposed, are you seeing anyone propose such higher (than someone else pays) income tax rates for lower income people?
  
  Poor people tend to spend all of their money just to survive (or because they don't know how to save). Which is why they have a higher burden, as a percentage of their income.
  What are you referring to, here? The services they pay for in the form of, say, natural gas service to heat their apartment? The costs of getting a haircut? The cost of running the government they also use? The cost of a grapefruit or a loaf of bread? When you make less money, everything represents a higher percentage of your income. Everything, that is, except a flat tax rate. Which is a percentage of your income, period. It goes down when your income goes down. The cost to heat a two-bedroom apartment is roughtly the same for a guy making $25k and a guy making $50k. Is that regressive, then?
  
  You seem to be very comfortable saying that the guy making $50k should be forced to work part of every day to subsidize the cost of government on behalf of the guy making $25k. Why aren't you saying that the guy making $50k should be forced pay for part of the other guy's heating bill? That's much more of an issue (for the poor guy) than the tax bill, which is smaller in actual dollars for the guy who makes less money.
  
  Which is it? Should someone who makes more money be forced to subsidize those who don't, or not? If not, then what are you arguing about? If so, then why aren't you proposing things that really take that concept and run with it? Where's your intellectual and moral integrity? The guy next door to you who makes less than you, who you're so worried, about would probably much rather have you pay his heating bill than his tax bill. Please explain why that's not on your government-should-make-that-happen list. Be specific.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
39. Re:Cheaters by sociocapitalist · 2012-02-12 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  "Nowhere else in America are you guilty till proven innocent and due process does not exist."
  I think you're remembering yesterday's America, before the Patriot Act.
  
  --
  blindly antisocialist = antisocial
40. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-12 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  You keep saying that, but you keep skipping over pointing out the part where anyone has proposed a higher income tax rate for someone making, say, $20k a year than for someone making $55k or $250k a year. In what scenario, current or proposed, are you seeing anyone propose such higher (than someone else pays) income tax rates for lower income people?
  You retard, do you not understand this? Do you constantly go around making yourself look like an idiot? Every sales tax in the world is regressive to some degree. It is easy to imagine why, although I have never met anyone who has as much trouble as you, figuring this out. Are you one of those people who has an IQ of 80? There must be some here on slashdot. Maybe you're just a troll.
  
  Can you not imagine a 10% sales tax scenario, where someone makes $20k, spends all their money, and thus pays $2k in taxes (or 10%). Whereas someone else makes $1million, spends $100k, and thus pay $10k in taxes (or 1%). This is known as a regressive tax, and it's not fair, although it seems only you are too blind to realize that.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
41. Re:Cheaters by thestallion · 2012-02-12 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  I completely agree, my friend. Wish we could get more people to champion the flat income tax idea. It is unfathomable to me how many people can defend such a complex tax system with so many loopholes for investors and corporations to circumvent paying their fair share.
  Simple tax scheme with no deductions/loopholes + not juicing poor people with consumption tax = massive win for society
42. Re:Cheaters by lsatenstein · 2012-02-12 11:49 · Score: 1
  
  The idea of taxing wealth is akin to warehouse charges for holding inventory. The banks already invest your wealth, and give you a pittance for storage costs.
  But instead of taxing consumption, fjnd a way to protect the pensioner or the man at the bottom of the income ladder. Taxing revenue, if a fair way to evaluate deductions would be ok, but from what I read here, there are too many loopholes in the corporate income tax structures, and the IRS as well, needs some overhaul.
  
  --
  Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
43. Re:Cheaters by cforciea · 2012-02-12 14:50 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't say our current tax system is as simple as the Fair Tax or any other specific consumption tax proposal. I said that consumption taxes aren't inherently simpler than income taxes. Even a progressive income tax isn't really more complicated. If, for instance, or tax system had the same progressive tax structure as it does now, only exactly 0 tax breaks or deductions were allowed, it would be more simple than even a completely flat tax in my eyes, because you could calculate your tax burden once per year by putting your total income for the year into a single, incredibly simple formula and get your tax burden. A flat consumption tax with no exceptions, by comparison, has to be calculated on each and every one of the hundreds or thousands of purchases I make in the next year. As somebody who has worked on software specifically to determine sales tax burdens for a business, I can assure you that the effort expended is non-trivial.
  
  No, the real reason our tax system is complicated is because we put a bunch of exemptions and loopholes into it. Some portion of them are probably even ones that you would support if you thought about it and would want applied to your consumption tax. Do you want your church to pay sales tax on purchases? Right now in my state for state/municipal sales tax they are exempt, so I am sure that it would be at least a somewhat popular idea. Extrapolate that out to every other exemption that some politician will eventually put in someplace, and we'll be right back where we are, only instead of having a wildly unpredictable tax rate curve because of all the exemptions out there, we'll have one because of all that piled on to the fact that even your base tax burden will be wildly unpredictable because it is based on money outflow rather than income.
  
  I stand by my initial assertion. There is nothing magical about a consumption tax. It doesn't make things better, and it doesn't do anything to reduce complexity that a simplified progressive income tax couldn't. The only particular property that it is has that gets it such praise from anybody is that it taxes poor people higher as a percentage of their overall income than it does rich people. Everything else is just a shell game that the rich proponents of the system are playing so that they can get richer.
44. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-12 19:31 · Score: 1
  
  Unfair, because the poor guy you mentioned is paying a fifth as much in sales taxes? Unfair because the tax doesn't leave everyone with exactly the same amount of cash at the end of the year? You really don't think it's fair until the guy who makes $1 million is also left with no money at the end of the year?
  
  What - specifically, in real numbers - is your standard of fairness for a sales tax, if not to apply it evenly, thus collecting more from people who consume more? And more to the point, why are you so desparate to avoid the main issue, which is that all the costs of life, including taxes, are - by your use of the word - regressive when someone make less cash? Taxes are one of the least among those costs, but they're the only ones you personally think someone else should carry for some other people?
  
  Why are you picking this one cost of living, and ignoring the other, larger ones? What about regressive gas prices? What about regressive spahetti prices? Shouldn't someone who makes a hundred dollars more than someone else chip in to buy the other guy's fuel and pasta, so that it will be "fair?" If not, why not? Please be specific. Not that you will even address the matter, because you're a hypocrite on the subject, just like everyone who trots out the ol' "flat taxes are really higher taxes on poor people even though the actual rate is the same for everyone and rich people will still pay far more dollars than anyone else, but please don't bother me with the facts, we have rich people to hate!"
  
  Regardless, the reason you and some other people deliberately mis-use the term "regressive" in this context (to the point where it is widely used by those with a specific political agenda) is because using it correctly (which would be to not use it all, since nobody is proposing any actually regressive tax rate), would take away a favorite tool of those who think that actually progressive tax rates are appropriate. Rather than try to justify the punishment of hard work on plainly twisted moral grounds, the tactic is to paint a picture of a higher tax rate on poor people as the only alternative. Which is a BS false dichotomy.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
45. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-12 19:37 · Score: 1
  
  And more to the point, why are you so desparate to avoid the main issue, which is that all the costs of life, including taxes, are - by your use of the word - regressive when someone make less cash?
  
  Life is hard, and unfair, but that doesn't mean the government needs to pile on and make it worse. Have you figured out how tax brackets work yet?
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
46. Re:Cheaters by roman_mir · 2012-02-12 19:55 · Score: 2
  
  "no deductions"? So you run a business, hire a few people, pay their salaries and can't deduct their salaries from your revenue before showing the profit?
  Can't deduct business expenses against revenue?
  Ha! Under those conditions nobody would ever run a business.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
47. Re:Cheaters by roman_mir · 2012-02-12 20:03 · Score: 2
  
  . Even a progressive income tax isn't really more complicated. ..
  I stand by my initial assertion.
  
  - well, you are free to stand by your totally wrong assertion, it's your business.
  Collecting papers over the year and having to FILE taxes at the end and then having to battle against IRS and having possible jail time and fines .. NONE OF IT is an issue with consumption tax.
  You come to a store - it's in the price. The only people that can make a mistake are owners of the store and 90% of population are not owners of stores.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
48. Re:Cheaters by cforciea · 2012-02-13 01:03 · Score: 1
  
  Which do you do more times in a year: make a purchase or get a paycheck? Just because you've shifted the complexity to somebody else doesn't magically make it go away.
49. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-13 01:23 · Score: 1
  
  Have you figured out how tax brackets work yet?
  Yes, they work to make it so that next week, when you work harder than you did this week, more of each dollar you make is taken and used to pay someone else's share of the cost of having a government that everyone uses.
  
  Life is hard, and unfair
  And so your solution is to make two people who are standing right next to each other doing the same job pay different taxes on a given dollar the earn, because one of them also works a second job?
  
  that doesn't mean the government needs to pile on and make it worse
  Don't you see that that is exactly of what you seem to approve? The system you like - the one that you say is fair - specifically, expressly piles on a higher tax rate burden for those very people who personally choose to do extra work, take risks to start new businesses and hire people, etc.
  
  You don't just want people to pay more dollars in taxes as they work harder, you want them to pay more of every dollar. Your reward for a person who pulls himself up from a lower income is to punish that act by giving more of his labor each day to other people. Your reward for people to not reach for a higher-paying job is to give them more of someone else's paycheck. Yeah, life's not fair, and you want it that way.
  
  Your preferred system punishses the very actions necessary to get oneself out of poverty as well doing things (like starting a business) that help other people to do so.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
50. Re:Cheaters by roman_mir · 2012-02-13 01:31 · Score: 2
  
  Again, if individuals do not have to file any papers, do not have to keep track of any papers, it immediately is INFINITELY easier for them than having to do any of it.
  Store is a business. They already have to keep track of their paperwork just to know what's going on in the business, keeping track of accounting, receivables, payables, everything, taxes are a small part of what stores do anyway for profit.
  People do not do accounting like that for profit, they only do any of it because the government forces them, and it's easy to see how much time and resources is wasted on it every year. Every person who files this shit every year spends hours if not days putting it all together, paying for it either for software packages or maybe going to an accountant.
  Spending time at an accountant, having to keep track of papers that do NOT make that individual any profit, that paperwork is ALL for the sake of government pleasure of stealing from individuals.
  Stores and other businesses already have accounting because they must know how the business is doing, so some extra paperwork for them is less of an issue, they already do it all anyway, so from hundreds of millions of people spending hours or days (at least an hour for sure, but in most cases a couple of days at least) is thousands of millions of hours spent every year.
  Then there are all the tax accountants and tax lawyers, and then there are IRS audits and courts and fines.
  And you are still standing by your bizarre assertion that doing that is not inherently more complex than coming to a store because you need to come there anyway, and paying the tax in the store as part of the purchase and never having to deal with any of that again?
  Ok then, I won't argue this stupid point any longer.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
51. Re:Cheaters by cforciea · 2012-02-13 02:27 · Score: 1
  
  Businesses already provide a W-2 for full time employees. In fact, if you are a single income earner household without any reductions, paying taxes already takes virtually no time. You don't have to spend time or money on an accountant.
  
  I really love that you keep trying to compare a mythical consumption tax with an actual tax system, too. I've gotten to work with real world sales taxes before, and they aren't all that you guys crack them up to be. I've worked at a small rural ISP (10 or so employees), and our sales taxes were incredibly difficult even without a federal component. We had to calculate sales tax by customer location to determine whether there were any municipal taxes, which made base rates vary from 6.25% to 8.25% often for people a mile away from each other. The first $25 of a monthly internet bill was tax exempt. We offered web hosting, which gets a percentage-based discount on state sales tax. We also had to tax on product but not on service, so marking up the cost of items that a technician could sell on-site meant that the customer paid more taxes than if we didn't mark up the price but had a separate line-item installation fee.
  
  Yes, we figured it out, but I am confident that a large portion of the businesses of our size in our industry weren't filing taxes incorrectly. Aren't people like you the ones always whining about excessive government regulation and how it kills small business?
52. Re:Cheaters by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 04:21 · Score: 0
  
  Aren't people like you the ones always whining about excessive government regulation and how it kills small business?
  roman_mir is not a conservative. He's Libertarian.
  See, both conservatives and Libertarians dislike regulation, but conservatives dislike it for what it does to businesses.
  Libertarians like roman_mir dislike regulations for what it does to individuals.
  What's important for roman_mir is that individuals save hours on tax-related accounting. So he claims the additional hours of accounting businesses have to do are trivial/minimal, since "they have to do accounting anyway"
53. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-13 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  when you work harder than you did this week, more of each dollar you make
  No, you are wrong. Your first dollar will always be taxed at the exact same rate, no matter how much you make. That is how tax brackets work.
  
  Sorry, if you refuse to learn, this conversation is useless. I also strongly suggest you read this, and make every attempt to avoid the same mistakes the cargo cults made.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
54. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-13 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  No, you are wrong. Your first dollar will always be taxed at the exact same rate, no matter how much you make. That is how tax brackets work.
  This is factually incorrect, and you know it. At the end of the year, when you actually file your taxes, you pay the higher rate for all of the money you earned, if you earned enough to put you in the higher bracket. Of course you know this, but you're pretending not to for some inexplicable reason.
  
  Your taxes are based on the totality of your earnings. And if you earned a lot later in the the year, you'll also be fined for not having payed more in taxes early in the year. But again, you know this, much as you hate to admit it (why is that?).
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
55. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-13 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  This is factually incorrect, and you know it. At the end of the year, when you actually file your taxes, you pay the higher rate for all of the money you earned, if you earned enough to put you in the higher bracket. Of course you know this, but you're pretending not to for some inexplicable reason.
  
  Are you always this dumb? Check it out. "Essentially, [tax brackets] are the cutoff values for taxable income — income past a certain point will be taxed at a higher rate." I mean, this is something basic research could have shown you.
  
  Are you also one of those people who believes that if you go up a bracket, your after-tax income could be less? Because that can't happen. Are you in some non-US country where tax bracket means something different?
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
56. Re:Cheaters by ScentCone · 2012-02-13 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  How is it helping you to be this obtuse?
  
  income past a certain point will be taxed at a higher rate
  That means that your income is taxed at a higher rate. When you go past the threshold, the number of cents taxed per dollar of all of your income will be higher when you sit down to file your taxes. Go ahead, fire up a copy of TurboTax, and run some numbers. Watch what happens. When you slip into the next bracket, your tax rate goes up, and the bottom line is that more pennies per dollar for all of your income are now taxed.
  
  And just in case you're curious why people mention that jumping tax brackets can lower your net income, it's because it's actually true. But it usually involves things like being married, and living in place that uses a convoluted derivative of your federal tax scenario to set your state and local taxes. I live in Maryland. I actually did jump brackets once, in the middle of a year, and by the time the dust settled, a not unpleasant little salary increase resulted in me taking home about $50 less every week. That was pretty annoying. I declined the raise, because only if it were about half again the size offered would I have avoided losing net money every month. But that doesn't usually happen on federal taxes alone - it takes your county and state's income taxes to compound the situation and enter at different thresholds to make it work out that way.
  
  I was unlucky because of exactly where the numbers were... but luck really shouldn't have anything to do with it. Having an employer offer you more money shouldn't leave you poorer. A tax code that works in that way is insane... but that's exactly how it shakes out in some places. Why you would derisively refer to people that unlucky with a sniffing "those people" when you're the one who has his numbers and his entire thinking on the subject incorrect is a bit mysterious. It's a defense mechanism, I suppose?
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
57. Re:Cheaters by phantomfive · 2012-02-13 15:02 · Score: 1
  
  Having an employer offer you more money shouldn't leave you poorer. A tax code that works in that way is insane... but that's exactly how it shakes out in some places.
  I'm sorry Maryland is dumb. That was sad for you. That's not how federal taxes work, though.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 12:49 · Score: 1

I bet he won't be punished NEARLY as bad as the megaupload guy. Such bullshit.
1. Re:This is bullshit by tomhudson · 2012-02-10 13:16 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Steal a million, go to jail. Steal hundreds of billions ...
2. Re:This is bullshit by sco08y · 2012-02-10 14:14 · Score: 1
  
  I bet he won't be punished NEARLY as bad as the megaupload guy. Such bullshit.
  How can you get so angry at something you speculate is going to happen?
  But there's no need to bet, it's in the fucking summary. 105 weeks in prison, after a guilty plea. The megaupload guy is fighting it, which means he might get off entirely, or they might slam him, so the two sentences won't be comparable.
3. Re:This is bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 14:30 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  105 MONTHS in prison, not weeks. Just a bit shy of 9 years.
4. Re:This is bullshit by Mitchell314 · 2012-02-10 14:34 · Score: 1
  
  you're a conqueror. Steal it all . . .
  
  --
  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
5. Re:This is bullshit by timeOday · 2012-02-10 14:37 · Score: 2
  
  You know, as much as I would not like to waste 2 years of my life in prison, I think I'd be even more worried about the rest of my life, as a felony convict. In these days of less-than-full employment, it's not like you can just rider over the next horizon and start over. Convicted felons are truly screwed for life employment-wise. They can't even get food stamps.
6. Re:This is bullshit by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-02-10 14:50 · Score: 1
  
  Steal hundreds of billions ...
  I object to your terminology here. That's called "tax", not "steal". ~
7. Re:This is bullshit by tomhudson · 2012-02-10 15:00 · Score: 1
  
  Oops - I guess I should have made it clear that I was referring to that "other tax" - the wall street bailouts. My bad!
  Trickle-down doesn't work, you'd think the government would realize trickle-up doesn't either.
8. Re:This is bullshit by Ethanol-fueled · 2012-02-10 15:11 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  Today I was discussing tickets from red-light cameras with a co-worker, and he said something profound -
  
  " That ticket cost me over 400 bucks, and I didn't even run the light, I turned into it. Over 400 bucks! I fought it and lost. It was three days of work's pay for me - it's really no different than going to jail for three days! "
  And then he added:
  
  " so I wrote my councilman, Carl DeMaio, and I didn't even get a canned response. What a beady-eyed, weaselly, rat-finked motherfucker. "
9. Re:This is bullshit by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-02-10 16:09 · Score: 1
  
  Don't worry, I'm not a libertarian; and I got the idea just fine. It was just too tempting to not poke fun at it that way.
10. Re:This is bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 20:56 · Score: 0
  
  He's not talking about tax. He's talking about copyright infringement.
  I'm pretty sure I've got a couple of hundred billion sitting around
  here on my hard drive.
It really never ceases to amaze me.... by mark-t · 2012-02-10 12:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

...that the people who do this kind of crap somehow genuinely figure that they won't ever be found out.
Why is it that you so rarely hear about crimes where the feds haven't been able to actually figure out who actually did it?

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
1. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 13:01 · Score: 0
  
  Ongoing investigations don't make it into court, and crime like this doesn't get much in the way of news coverage otherwise, since the emergency crew rarely get involved.
  Unsolved bank robberies, now they get a bit of coverage at the incident, but the arrest is another matter.
2. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by izomiac · 2012-02-10 14:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The best criminals are smart enough to make it look like a crime never occurred, and there are probably a fair number of these (not an extraordinary number, there are lucrative "honest" lines of work for smart people). This guy probably though he could pull that off.
  
  The article isn't too explicit on the details, but it sounds like he used his position and expertise to identify 29 people who were [dumber: weren't] eligible but didn't file [dumber: yet] for substantial tax returns. Then, he used the data he had (e.g. name, social security number, finances, etc.) to file those returns, with the refunds going to accounts under his control. (Smart: setup accounts in the proper recipient's name and state, Dumb: setup the accounts in his own state/name.)
  
  This was an all-or-nothing crime. Either it's never discovered or he's caught. Who knows if he's the first to have tried? And, for those wanting his head, it wasn't a horrible crime. It's stealing, since it's not his money, but the victim is hard to identify (the people not claiming refunds? the government for relying on ignorance/apathy to not refund extra taxes inadvertently paid?). The stiff punishment is likely related to how close he was to getting away with it and how much he almost got (i.e. to make the risk greater than the reward).
3. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by Tharsman · 2012-02-10 15:13 · Score: 2
  
  It's naive to think that having most prosecutions convicted means most occurrences even get prosecuted.
  Most crimes of this type never get caught. Heck, no one even finds out they happened in the first place.
4. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by rachit · 2012-02-10 15:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You know, there is never just one cockroach...
5. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 16:01 · Score: 0
  
  Because if you're really that good, they don't even know it happened.
6. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by epine · 2012-02-10 19:30 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  This is the perfect crime for an early season of the Sopranos, which featured several episodes where "degenerate" businessmen engaged in acts of crime they couldn't refuse. One involved an executive at an HMO, another involved a sporting gear franchise. Difference is that the screenwriters probably weren't bold enough to make this one up.
  
  And, for those wanting his head, it wasn't a horrible crime. It's stealing, since it's not his money, but the victim is hard to identify ...
  David Rose on the Moral Foundations of Economic Behavior in which he discusses his new book by that title.
  From the very loose transcript (my emph.):
  
  [W]hat is required to live that way, doesn't require twenty hours of schooling. It requires many years of continuous reinforcement in order to build the character to produce the moral conviction behind a belief, but the beliefs themselves are pretty simple. Don't do stuff, don't do negative moral actions. Just don't do them; and just because nobody gets hurt, that doesn't mean you can do it, either. Because it's not about the person who is getting hurt or not hurt; it's about you. If you steal, even though nobody gets hurt, you are still a thief. So don't do it. Period. Don't even consider it. Don't even run it up the flagpole. That's not that complicated. And then secondly, if somebody says to you that you should do something that you know is wrong but it's okay to do it because there's this other good thing over here that you can make happen if you do otherwise, you need to realize that that is the language of a charlatan, that that is inappropriate, that you are being sucked in.
  By the time you start rationalizing about the diffuse nature of the victim, moral laxity is already half-way up the flag pole.
  David Rose knows your type:
  
  The amount of cheating has never been zero, of course, but it has gone up dramatically in the last 25 years. Moreover, in the past when you asked students why they cheated and they explained why they cheated, they almost never excused the cheating; they never downplayed the moral import of it. They would say it was wrong but they had to do it. Today, though, increasingly--I don't remember the proportion but it's a shockingly high proportion--most of them report cheating at least once; and a shockingly high proportion of those who report cheating at least once say: What's the big deal? In other words, they make an argument that is very consistent with the absence of principled moral restraint. Because their argument is: I cheated; so what? Nobody got hurt. I didn't take anything from anybody. Nobody's worse off. Teacher's not worse off; I'm certainly not worse off; nobody in the class is worse off; what difference did it make? And the answer of course is, at that margin it makes no difference at all. But my point is that it's indicative of a shift in moral beliefs themselves, the way we organize our thoughts, and it's very frightening.
7. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by kubernet3s · 2012-02-10 19:53 · Score: 1
  
  You kind of answered your own question, hoss. It's not like murder, where someone doesn't show up to work and so police KNOW a crime has been committed: financial crimes are successful when the "victim" institution simply doesn't know the difference. It's especially the case where the amount being stolen is large on the scale of the individual, but small on the scale of the transaction/company ledger (i.e. an "office space" scam), which makes it easier for the ledger to be doctored, or at least for transactions to be deliberately misrepresented.
8. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by thatskinnyguy · 2012-02-10 20:10 · Score: 1
  
  DBCooper. Nuff said. *micdrop*
  
  --
  The game.
9. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 00:11 · Score: 0
  
  May be there are a lot of people who've pulled this off... we only get to know the ones who've been caught..
10. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 02:21 · Score: 0
  
  I was thinking the same thing. Seriously, you successfully pull off something like this, you move to another country with no extradition to the US, ASAP.
11. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by mark-t · 2012-02-11 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't say it never happens... it just seems to happen very rarely that people who break the law manage to do so with enough competence that, although you don't necessarily abide what they did, you can at least respect that they had definitely considered all the possible angles.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
12. Re:It really never ceases to amaze me.... by cliffjumper222 · 2012-02-11 07:05 · Score: 1
  
  > Nobody got hurt.
  Hmm. I cheated once at school and it almost wrecked my future. I wasn't caught, and it sent me on a path that I wouldn't have gone down if I hadn't have cheated. I was taking a Chemistry exam aged 14 and due to overcrowding, the exam was in a regular classroom rather than the gym. The assistant music teacher was running the show and as he had really bad eyesight it was just too easy to look through books in my bag for answers. A month later, the results came out and I hit 90% - almost top of the class and a strong indication that I should pick Chemistry as one of my subjects the next year. That was a terrible decision. After slogging through 2 months of Chemistry, I realized I was actually really crap at it and hated the subject, but by then it was too late to switch. I ended up wasting 2 years studying something I hated.
  So, you can cheat, but the only person you're fooling is yourself if you think that result means anything at all. Know your own worth.
Dumb plan by tukang · 2012-02-10 12:50 · Score: 3, Informative

According to the DOJ, Richardson admitted that the tax returns were prepared without the authorization of the 58 taxpayers listed on the tax returns. All of the returns directed that the IRS pay the money to one of Richardson's bank accounts.
I imagine a red flag was automatically triggered by the 58 returns going to one bank account. As a side note, I know people who write code for the Federal government that checks for irregularities like this and they do that for a living 40 hours a week, so if you're going to try to scam the IRS you have to be at least a little clever.
1. Re:Dumb plan by Gr33nJ3ll0 · 2012-02-10 12:54 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  I think you need to read that a little closer. It says bank accountS as in plural. Surprisingly a guy who was attempting to defraud the IRS from the inside was smart enough to open more than one account.
2. Re:Dumb plan by tukang · 2012-02-10 13:07 · Score: 1
  
  It also says "one of", which they could have just left out if they meant that the money went to multiple accounts. Regardless, triggering a red flag on 58 returns going to one account owner (as opposed to one account) is just as trivial.
3. Re:Dumb plan by Sir_Sri · 2012-02-10 14:12 · Score: 2
  
  The red flag might have been a single employee doing a particularly large (or small) number of returns or returns of the wrong general value, in a 2 day period. Granted at 59 returns it's 130k per return, but that would mean this guy happened upon 59 filings from the top 1% of wage earners (the top 1% in the US now is around 300k/year in income so for 2005 tax returns paying out 130k should be relatively rare, unless you work on those, and if you work on the ones with big money I'd expect you to get more scrutiny).
  The article suggests but doesn't explicitly say he was caught because the SSN's he used were for single people, not married people and he was filing jointly or problems like that, so the automated tools caught some of it.
  It also looks like they caught this on the 8th return, not the 59th. They only paid out on 7 claims, before they realized something was up.
4. Re:Dumb plan by w_dragon · 2012-02-11 00:23 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe this doesn't exist in the US, but here we have places that advertise 'we do your taxes, you get your refund right away'. I assume that they do your taxes, give you the cash minus a fee, and set your refund to be deposited in their account. If that type of business exists then it wouldn't throw up any flags to have a bunch of returns done at once going to the same account.
I wonder if there's a hole there by v1 · 2012-02-10 12:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

Richardson used his inside knowledge of IRS operations to commit his crime,
So I wonder what aspect of "insider knowledge" he used? Logins and passwords? back doors? social engineering? test accounts? phone numbers to helpful clerks that don't think about what they're being asked to do? secret URLs?
Is there a back door that anyone with similar "insider knowledge" can use, that's not a hole that's closable with say a simple password change? (has the hole been closed?)

--
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
1. Re:I wonder if there's a hole there by treeves · 2012-02-10 12:59 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  According to your sig, you also work for the Federal government, so you'd better be careful asking such questions!
  
  --
  ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
2. Re:I wonder if there's a hole there by treeves · 2012-02-10 14:25 · Score: 2
  
  Modded Interesting? Thanks for the karma, but I don't really need it, and it was a *joke* (all good jokes have some element of truth of course).
  
  --
  ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
3. Re:I wonder if there's a hole there by twistofsin · 2012-02-10 14:38 · Score: 1
  
  Richardson used his inside knowledge of IRS operations to commit his crime,
  So I wonder what aspect of "insider knowledge" he used? Logins and passwords? back doors? social engineering? test accounts? phone numbers to helpful clerks that don't think about what they're being asked to do? secret URLs?
  Is there a back door that anyone with similar "insider knowledge" can use, that's not a hole that's closable with say a simple password change? (has the hole been closed?)
  I suspect that his "insider knowledge" was about people who were due to receive a lot of money back but had not yet filed.
4. Re:I wonder if there's a hole there by GringoGoiano · 2012-02-10 17:33 · Score: 1
  
  IRS uses the SenSage log data storage & analysis product: http://sensage.com/content/customers
  Having used this product I'm sure the IRS will have all they need to track his electronic footprints outside the normal bounds and scope of his work. Unfortunately we'll never know.
Is This the Opportunity that the IRS... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 13:11 · Score: 0

has been waiting for? What is the likelihood that these 58 taxpayers, and others, will be audited... for their own good?
1. Re:Is This the Opportunity that the IRS... by mark-t · 2012-02-10 13:26 · Score: 1
  
  How is that especially an opportunity? Do you have any idea how many people actually get audited in a year? 58 more is completely inconsequential.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
IRS by roman_mir · 2012-02-10 13:16 · Score: 1, Offtopic

What this agent did was actually a minor correction of the fraud and crime that IRS is involved with on the daily basis.

--
You can't handle the truth.
1. Re:IRS by roman_mir · 2012-02-10 13:19 · Score: 2
  
  A little typo: I don't mean to imply that identity theft is a 'correction' of the IRS fraud, only that what IRS does on daily basis is fraud and this guy is just a small part of that entire fraudster operation.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
2. Re:IRS by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 01:46 · Score: 0
  
  Quit using sock puppets to mod yourself up.
Re:Just another crime... by uncanny · 2012-02-10 13:19 · Score: 1, Flamebait

and the problem is?
Eight million dollars?!?!? by sootman · 2012-02-10 13:22 · Score: 5, Funny

Wow. That's like... four illegal downloads!

--
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
dept of redundancy dept by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 13:24 · Score: 0

your nonsense doesn't magically turn into actual fact just because you keep linking to yourself saying it. you should either become a better troll or find a better hobby.
News for nerds. by Beelzebud · 2012-02-10 13:32 · Score: 1

Glad to see /. sticking to their slogan of "news for nerds".
1. Re:News for nerds. by Sir_Sri · 2012-02-10 14:13 · Score: 1
  
  The thrust of the article is actually about the privacy concerns the IRS has, and this is the sort of thing that can go wrong. So it is topical, if you look past the summary.
2. Re:News for nerds. by sandytaru · 2012-02-10 15:05 · Score: 1
  
  Nerds are by their very natures polymaths. We like to stick our curious little noses in a lot of things people wouldn't expect us to be interested in.
  
  --
  Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
$80,000 a month! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 13:40 · Score: 0

That $80,000 a month! Who says crime doesn't pay?
1. Re:$80,000 a month! by jaymzter · 2012-02-10 18:45 · Score: 1
  
  Thomas Richardson was quoted as saying:
  "I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shit. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail."
  
  --
  If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Re:Just another crime... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 13:44 · Score: 0

Michael Jackson committed suicide.
What is the tax rate on ill-gotten gains? by NotQuiteReal · 2012-02-10 13:57 · Score: 2

Hypothetical, say you are a criminal, but want to avoid the fate of Al Capone and get busted for not paying your taxes. Can you use the capital gains rate if you have some sort of fraud that takes more than a year for the payoff?

The best would be some sort of crime that pays off after the statute of limitations, and you only have to pay the lower capital gains rate. Win Win Win!

--
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
1. Re:What is the tax rate on ill-gotten gains? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 14:53 · Score: 0
  
  Al Capone busted on IRS evasion has got to be the best PR stunt in history.
2. Re:What is the tax rate on ill-gotten gains? by hawks5999 · 2012-02-10 15:05 · Score: 1
  
  Launder the money through a car wash. If you don't know how to do that... Better Call Saul.
What a smarty by GillyGuthrie · 2012-02-10 14:02 · Score: 1

TFA says all 58 returns directed money be deposited into one of the guy's bank accounts. Derp
They get greedy. by ArchieBunker · 2012-02-10 14:02 · Score: 1

Say they stopped at $6 million. That is enough to get a new false identity or move to a country without extradition. After watching Top Gear I'd settle on Vietnam. Looks beautiful and friendly and has no diplomatic or extradition treaties.

--
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
1. Re:They get greedy. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 15:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  After watching Top Gear I'd settle on Vietnam. Looks beautiful and friendly and has no diplomatic or extradition treaties.
  Everywhere looks "beautiful and friendly" when you've got a massive production team running around making sure everything goes smoothly (and an editing team for when things don't).
2. Re:They get greedy. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 16:11 · Score: 0
  
  @ArchieBunker, So you have like 6 million dollars of other people's money, and you decide to be smart and fly off to Vietnam. The idea is you're an American and you have 6 million dollars, and you think Vietnam doesn't have extradition. So you show up with 6 million in cash, diamonds, bearer bonds, or maybe it's in Swiss bank accounts. You have a US passport, or maybe you got one from somewhere else, but they know who you are. They welcome you because you have money, but since the US government wants to talk to you about something they think you might have done, it's not like you can ask them for help, because the first thing they're going to do if they get in the same room with you is ask about the 6 million dollars. The Vietnamese government (or whomever) knows this, or finds out shortly after you arrive, and jacks you for 6M. Now you're wanted for the theft of 6 million dollars, and you have no money, and you're in a country where people from your country, not too long ago, and within living memory of many people who were there at the time, were raping, murdering, pillaging, etc., their country not so long ago. I am not sure that's a good idea. Why not simply not steal in the first place. Afterall, the US government doesn't like people stealing, especially from it... it hates the competition. Besides if you want to steal, the best way it's being shown now is to be a business criminal. So many millionaires and billionaires in the US made their fortunes by robbing people blind using perfectly legal business tricks. Like buying a company, subdividing it into two or more parts, at least one of which holds all the debts and obligations, and one or more others that hold all the assets, then cast loose the debt-ridden portion that then promptly has to file for bankruptcy and goes under taking dozens or hundreds or even thousands of jobs with it, while the executives get million+ dollar golden parachutes, and laugh as everyone else goes down. That's the way to do it. Of course it requires you have no conscience.
3. Re:They get greedy. by El+Torico · 2012-02-10 20:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Everywhere is beautiful and friendly when you're very rich.
  
  --
  In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
financial crimes often go unreported by decora · 2012-02-10 14:31 · Score: 5, Informative

1. a lot of financial institutions would rather not it be public knowledge that they have problems in their security systems, etc. they try to hush things up without getting the cops involved.
2. the cops sometimes will collude with them to hush things up. see 'The Asylum' by Leah McGrath Goodman and NYMEX (yes, NYMEX from Trading Places)
3. at the highest echelon, the notion of what is legal and illegal gets distorted and fooled with, by lobbyists, payed-for intellectuals, and the super rich. so that to date there has been little-to-no prosecution of the people in the CDO, mortgage securities, robo signing, foreclosure fraud, and housing bubble system. experts and authors like Roger Lowenstein spill buckets of ink trying to prove that no crime took place, even though 2 trillion dollars magically disappeared into hedge funds and investment banks offshore accounts in 2008, with the help of the taxpayer.
4. take number 3 and just ... multiply it. well. did you know, for example, that the guy who ran Nymex was, directly before he ran Nymex, the head government regulator of Nymex? And that he let Nymex do stuff that it shouldn't have been doing, and then they hired him out of his government job and gave him a huge raise? there are thousands of cases like that that never receive media attention.
in other words, people DO get away with that sort of thing, all the time.
and the best way to get away with it is to have something like 'CEO' or 'Board Chairman' on your resume.
1. Re:financial crimes often go unreported by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 22:10 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  FWIW, being a lowly anonymous coward: I worked for large multinational bank, and low-level petty thieves in the system (trying to cash checks under stolen identities, steal money orders, etc.) are *always* dismissed without police prosecution. Furthermore, this is widely known amongst employees, some of whom attempt to take advantage of the PR-shy policy. But there are massive amounts of checks and balances between multiple departments and heavy security to try to guard against loss as much as possible, making it very difficult for a lone perpetrator to get away with pocketing much. On the other hand, nepotism and cronyism run rampant in the banking industry, so if you have three or four collaborators covering up each other's thefts working from different departments and floors, that's when the take gets juicy.
105 months = 8.75 years so $914,285/year by seifried · 2012-02-10 15:36 · Score: 1

Not bad, it would seem white collar crime really does pay.
1. Re:105 months = 8.75 years so $914,285/year by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 16:25 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah! that's $2500 a DAY, vastly more than I make! would I go to jail for 13 years, for $8 million? I don't know, maybe!
2. Re:105 months = 8.75 years so $914,285/year by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 00:42 · Score: 0
  
  I've been sitting in a cubicle 'jail' for 8 years and only have made $400,000, at least 25% of which went to taxes.
  And I haven't even received a conjugal visit...
  If he hid the money well, or wasn't fined $9 million, there are good places of the world to go to to spend it.
Perhaps because they haven't been caught? by BenJCarter · 2012-02-10 15:40 · Score: 1

I think it's cool that we actually caught one!

--
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
If the IRS accepts your taxes on crime... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 16:56 · Score: 0

...isn't that implicit approval that what you did was legal?
1. Re:If the IRS accepts your taxes on crime... by subreality · 2012-02-10 18:46 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  ...isn't that implicit approval that what you did was legal?
  No, that's implicit approval that you didn't also commit tax evasion.
  The rulings are pretty self-consistent. You can even deduct the expenses for your illegal business:
  "While embezzlers, thieves, and the like are forced to report their ill-gotten gains as income for tax purposes, they may also take deductions for costs relating to criminal activity. For example, in Commissioner v. Tellier, a taxpayer was found guilty of engaging in business activities that violated the Securities Act of 1933.[7] The taxpayer subsequently tried to deduct from his gross income the legal fees he spent while defending himself.[8] The Supreme Court held that the taxpayer was allowed to deduct the legal fees from his gross income because they meet the requirements of 162(a).[9], which allows the taxpayer to deduct all the “ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on a trade or business.”[10] The Court reasoned (and the Internal Revenue Service did not contest the point) that it was ordinary and necessary for a person engaged in a business to expect to have legal fees associated with that business, even though such things may only happen once in a lifetime.[11] Therefore, the taxpayer in Tellier was allowed to deduct his legal fees from his gross income, even though he incurred the fees because of his crime. The Tellier court reiterated that the purpose of the tax code was to tax net income, not punish unlawful behavior.[12] The Court suggested that if this was not the case, Congress would change the tax code to include special tax rules for illegal conduct.[13]" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_of_illegal_income_in_the_United_States
2. Re:If the IRS accepts your taxes on crime... by base3 · 2012-02-11 00:35 · Score: 1
  
  Nuggets of information like this are why i still like to read Slashdot. Thanks!
  
  --
  One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Re:Just another crime... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-10 17:34 · Score: 0

The Dr. Didn't murder him....It was manslaughter.
Unfortunately, you're an idiot. by raehl · 2012-02-11 02:12 · Score: 1

First, the oft-touted "47% of tax units pay no income taxes" statistic is wrong. 47% of tax units may not pay the Federal Income Tax, but any of them with any wage income at all DO pay the Federal Payroll Tax of 15.3% on every dollar earned up to about $100k. That's a tax on income.
That's a higher tax rate than the very wealthy pay on their investment / dividend / carried interest income.
As a matter of fact, I personally pay a federal tax rate of about 29%, double the tax rate paid by Mitt Romney.
Most people advocating replacing the Federal Income Tax with a "flat" tax are really advocating HUGE tax breaks for the rich, because they're still going to charge anyone who dares to work for a living the new "flat" tax *AND* the 15.3% payroll tax which they're not going to pay.
Even better are those who argue for a 0% capital gains and dividend tax (Newt, Ron Paul), who don't want the wealthy to pay ANY TAXES AT ALL!

--
paintball
1. Re:Unfortunately, you're an idiot. by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  I personally pay a federal tax rate of about 29%, double the tax rate paid by Mitt Romney
  You're pretending that he didn't already pay the higher income tax rate on the money he earned and then risked in the investments that, if/when then make money, are once again taxed at the capital gains rate.
  
  If you're really paying the rate you say you are, then you're making a tolerable living. Do you really have no investments of any kind? No 401? No IRA? Are you proposing that taxes are raised on such things? Maybe that's a good idea, since most of those dollars come out of your paycheck before you pay taxes, unlike (since you brought up the example) the money that people like Romney invest in various ventures.
  
  As to your initial point: I was talking about income taxes. You're talking about payroll taxes. Great, let's talk about what happens with the taxes other than income taxes: the people on the lower end of the income spectrum end up getting far more back out of such programs than they put into them. Simple as that. It's a welfare system, and they win.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
2. Re:Unfortunately, you're an idiot. by dreold · 2012-02-11 04:46 · Score: 1
  
  It's a welfare system, and they win.
  Personally, I don't see how switching my (income-earning, tax-paying) lifestyle to a welfare one would be a win, but I am sure you must be right. After all, people everywhere in the US are just lining up and asking for wage decreases in order to earn as little as possible so they can apply for federal programs... Wealth is different from income and is taxed differently, usually much to the advantage of those with wealth. The great myth is that wealth is always earned (through income and wise choices) by the person benefitting from it. In the real world, wealth is passed on.
3. Re:Unfortunately, you're an idiot. by ScentCone · 2012-02-11 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  In the real world, wealth is passed on.
  Only after it has been substantially taxed. Regardless, your image of a cadre of cartoon-like rich-kid tax-evading villains is completely at odds with where most "rich" people come from. All of those Eeeevil people that the left says are the source of the deficit (by virtue of being under-taxed) are mostly dual-income professional families who did earn their way into Hated Rich People territory by making over $250,000 year.
  
  But if it will make you feel better, how about we line up everyone who makes a million bucks a year or more. There are a lot of them. And to slake your thirst for these shiftless, non-working aristrocrats' blood, let's confiscate ALL of their earnings. A tax rate of 100%, to make things The Way It Ought To Be. Guess what: A complete seizure of all of their income wouldn't even cover the federal deficit through April of this year. To say nothing of touching the debt, or covering the inherently bankrupt entitlement programs.
  
  Without income, wealth goes away. Most wealth is tied up in non-liquid assets. Things have to be sold to turn it into spendable cash.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 03:54 · Score: 0

I worked at the IRS in the 1980's. My boss (a dickhead, not surprising) was arrested in 1990 for claiming half a million dollars in fraudulent refunds on fake returns. He only served a couple years in prison.
The thing is, he had been getting away with it for a couple years by filing for "small" refunds of under $100,000 dollars. He just got greedy and tried to go for a big payoff of $350,000 all at once. Yes, cocaine debts were involved.
Re:Cheatersincludes by clodney · 2012-02-11 04:25 · Score: 1

OK, so you hate people who've risked money making investments. We get that. But do you really think everyone else is so stupid to think you're saying anything of substance? Roughly 50% of the population earns money below the rate that the Congress has set as meaning they owe incomes taxes, and many of them receive "refunds" on money they don't even pay. They don't pay income taxes, they pay negative income taxes. A small number of rich people pay the vast majority of the country's income taxes, and middle class people pay the bits that are left over. The other half of people pay none. Of course you know that, and you're a troll.
That 50% figure is dramatically misleading. First, it includes things like high school and college students who work part time and earn a pittance. And it also includes retirees who are not in the workforce. You can argue that even those people should pay income taxes, but the perception of a permanent 50% underclass that never pays taxes is absurd. Most taxpayers will not pay income taxes at both the start of their career and after retirement. I can't find the cite now, but I remember reading that simple demographics accounts for roughly 35% of the people who pay no income taxes.
And lets not forget that for many people, payroll taxes are a bigger bite than income taxes - 7.4% starting on the first dollar you make, with no exemption or deductions. For rich people the payroll tax is not a significant factor, since social security taxes stop after $109K.
actual song by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:03 · Score: 0

"n n n n n n n. I'm a hunded puhcent n. N N N N N N N! I'm two hunded puhcent N!"
You'd bring about a terrible depression. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 16:55 · Score: 0

Consumption taxes like sales taxes depress economic activity and inherently harm the poor. You'd crash the economy and with all your pride, you would never see it coming or admit it. The tax code needs to be radically simplified and the IRS cut down to size, but progressive income taxes must remain; they are the only realistic way to do this.
I would like to dump everything, all deductions, credits, etc. Call all income income and have the brackets. Nothing more.
That said, the tax deductibility of donations to charities and religious organizations would be difficult to dump. But I think credits could go. If you want to encourage activities that are good for the future of the country as a whole, setup grants that can be tracked by the public.
Public good grants:
x amount of money was given to girlfriends for slashdot
No, I'm not pretending. by raehl · 2012-02-11 17:01 · Score: 1

You're pretending that he didn't already pay the higher income tax rate on the money he earned and then risked in the investments that, if/when then make money, are once again taxed at the capital gains rate.
Mitt Romney NEVER paid the higher income tax rate. His initial earnings were as carried interest paid at the capital gains rate; he NEVER paid the regular income tax rate on those earnings.
So, first problem, you're wrong.
Second problem:
If "putting your money at risk" for some reason deserved a lower tax rate, why aren't gambling and lottery winnings taxed at the capital gains rate instead of the income tax rate? After all, the money spent on the lottery ticket was ALREADY taxed once, right?
Further, why does income from wages have a special tax that income from other sources doesn't?

--
paintball
Who'd they think they were DEMOCRATS? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 17:24 · Score: 0

Only Democrats can get by with Tax fraud in the USA. In fact I was told that being able to dodge the IRS was a screening policy for members of the Obama Regime.