Slashdot Mirror
IRS Employee Stole Data To Forge $8M In Fraudulent Returns
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."
In America...
you tax IRS!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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'
Oh. I was going to say "Does he have internet access in prison? Can slashdot interview him?". But crucifying is probably more humane...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...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
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.
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