Slashdot Mirror
Law Lets IRS Seize Accounts On Suspicion, No Crime Required
schwit1 writes: The IRS admits to seizing hundreds of thousands of dollars of private assets, without any proof of illegal activity, merely because there is a law that lets them do it. From the article: "Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up and settle the case for a portion of their money.
'They're going after people who are really not criminals,' said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. 'They're middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.'" The article describes several specific cases, all of which are beyond egregious and are in fact entirely unconstitutional. The Bill of Rights is very clear about this: The federal government cannot take private property without just compensation."
'They're going after people who are really not criminals,' said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. 'They're middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.'" The article describes several specific cases, all of which are beyond egregious and are in fact entirely unconstitutional. The Bill of Rights is very clear about this: The federal government cannot take private property without just compensation."
It's time for the people to take back the world. The massive bureaucracy with its bloated laws and indifferent employees have got to shrink!
it's a bad law and i don't think it should exist but most of the examples in the article are people highly likely to be cheating on their taxes by running a cash only business and under reporting their revenues.
Ok.
But there are existing processes to investigate and prosecute tax cheats. Use them.
I guess the IRS saw the 2.5B dollar haul local cops have brought in since 9-11, and said "oooo look! I bet we can do that too...thanks 9-11! thanks Patriot Act!! thanks terrorists!!!"
What happened to be "innocent until proven guilty"? Nothing wrong with investigating people with hard-to-track business models. But fleecing them just because their business model makes total control harder to do? Not exactly an incentive to be honest when you are going to be fleeced anyway, is it?
If they put their cash in a box, what's going to stop federal agents taking the box, using the argument that anybody that keeps their cash in a box is highly likely to be cheating on their taxes ?
Just because something is a law, does not make it A- correct, or B - constitutional. Taking from people with no proof of a crime, is unconstitutional. I hope these people get a damn good lawyer, and sue the fuck out of the IRS. I mean the IRS has always been a clusterfuck, but i cant think of any other time in my admittedly short life that the IRS has been involved in so many scandals
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
...Is going to have to be to drive a silver stake through the whole civil forfeiture beast.
Since legalized theft through Civil Forfeiture pumps billions of dollars every year into the coffers of police departments throughout the country, the IRS simply wants their piece of the pie as well.
IRS agent: Gentlemen you're accounts have all been seized, no doubt you're curious as to why.
Walmart CEO: Yeah what gives? is this a mistake?
Oracle CEO: We filed our taxes last month! as you can see we owed nothing.
GE CEO: Hes right! we didnt owe a damned thing on that 20 billion in profit we made
IRS Agent: yes through a system of complex accounting and offshore assets you've managed to not only avoid paying taxes but in some cases demand millions in tax refunds. So we got to thinking...who would be so nefarious as to intentionally defraud the government in such a malevolent way. And thats when we decided you're all drug dealing terrorist shariah muslim ISIS fighters.
Microsoft CEO: we are not! we make helpful electronics and software for everybody to become more productive!!
IRS Agent:....Thats exactly what id expect some Zune making terrorist to say...
Good people go to bed earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Civil Forfeiture (HBO)
Running a small business without putting money in the bank is just as much reason to investigate. And if they do an audit on a restaurant, and there's a bunch of stuff, like food stocks, equipment, furniture, vehicles, that aren't in the books, it won't take a genius to figure out what's going on.
Since it sounds like it breaks multiple amendment in the bill of rights, to be specific the 4th, 5th, and 8th. Let's see, the 4th prohibits unreasonable seizures which this is. You'd think it breaks the 5th since that literally says "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". (How is taking property with no ability to get it back not expressly prohibited by that?) Finally it breaks the 8th in my mind because "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." to me means the only appropriate punishment if there has been no crime proven is no punishment at all.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
..at least from the article it seems to me that the victims in this case are entirely innocent.
It seems entirely unjust, and obviously so.
I'd say it's a perfect case where someone would go to their congressman or senator and start getting some crap stirred up.
-Styopa
not if you have a good accountant who reports losses in the right years and profits small enough to let you live on in others
On Thursday, in response to questions from The New York Times, the I.R.S. announced that it would curtail the practice, focusing instead on cases where the money is believed to have been acquired illegally or seizure is deemed justified by “exceptional circumstances.”
Oh, well, that's okay then, liberty and justice for all. Nothing to see here. "Move along. I said, move the !@#$ along!"
Thank goodness the system is self-correcting. All you need to do is catch the !@#$sucking, mother!@#$ing sons of whores doing it, and they'll stop. Simple. Hoorah! USA!1!
Why did it take a MSM article for them to think of whether it was acquired illegally or that they had justification? When do we get our Magna Carta?
Then we come over all indignant when that law (which is "on the books") is used outside its originally intended area of application.
Am I the only one who thinks that Congress is to blame here (for passing sloppy legislation), not the IRS or The Government?
Might it not be a good idea to work harder to phrase legislation in such a way that it's difficult to abuse? Or would that cramp the style of "tough-on-crime" politicians?
These property seizures are basically piracy and home invasion. The correct answers are historically obvious.
I'm not sure I understand why people don't take the matter to court (and involve the press) to expose the unconstitutional actions of the government. How could a court decide in favour of the government when the person hasn't committed a material crime?
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
It's a Fifth Amendment issue, but I think it's more to do with the bolded text.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
It's a bad law and I don't think... kinda says it all. I do think and I believe the Fed runs the biggest cash business of all. Stop the printing presses, back a government currency backed by precious metals. Hang all these "above the law" bankster cartels and their bought-dog politicians. Rescind the insane belief that corporations are persons. Go after the real persons in these corporations and put them out of our misery.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
This seizure of assets stuff is one of the biggest scandals that isn't being widely discussed in the media. It's happening with organizations with police powers at every level in the US, from local sheriff's to municipal police right on up to Federal police agencies like the IRS.
The most insidious part of the story is that it is really nothing more than a tool of upward redistribution of wealth - upward. Like most things in government since at least 1980, the government is all about redistributing wealth upwards.
By far, asset seizure is being used more often against people in the lower half of the socio-economic scale. In Chicago, I see it every day with cars being booted for non-payment of parking tickets, and it's accelerated since the cost of street parking went up 20-40x over the course of three years.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If they've done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
I hope you were being sarcastic but it's modded 'insightful' so that's not how people are reading it! Even if you are completely innocent of all wrong doing having your accounts frozen will have a massive impact on your life. Suddenly accessing your paycheque to pay the mortgage/rent, purchase food etc. becomes impossible all you have is you cash on hand for however long it takes them to realize that you are innocent and to pay it back. That will have a massive impact on your life and to be able to do that simply because some overworked policeman has a suspicion seems highly unreasonable. In fact I'm guessing that you'll need to go to court to get the money back and who knows how you'll be paying for the lawyer or whether you can also reclaim the expenses of the court case from the US government.
I'm all for supporting law enforcement but seizing money on a suspicion without any court oversight is just wrong. If they need to act fast then let them freeze an account for 24 hours to give them the time to go to a court and make a case for seizure. This gives them the ability to act rapidly, keeps the system open to public scrutiny and would ensure that they have some evidence before peoples lives are impacted. Why do governments find it so hard to put reasonable balances like this into laws?
It went out of fashion in the 1990s. Because War On (some) Drugs.
Seriously, people, this civil forfeiture bullshit has been going on since the late 20th century. It's legal roots go back to the 1600s, but it was the U.S. in the 1990s where it started to get egregious.
Are y'all just learning about it? Start with the wik for a decent overview.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Perhaps you should get YOUR facts straight. The central law, the Bank Secrecy Act and its various amendments, which is what created this legal situation, were ALL passed by a Congress where BOTH Houses were controlled by the Democratic Party. These were not "Republican policies". Since they were signed into law by Republican Presidents, I must conclude that they were bipartisan,
It is possible this conclusion is wrong, so I will not argue with anyone providing evidence that this was primarily a Democratic Party idea (I can think of several explanations as to why a Republican President would sign a bill into law that he mildly disagreed with, but cannot conclude that any of those are true in this case without doing more work than I am willing to at this time).
Conclusion: This is not a "Republican policy". It is a bipartisan policy and should be unconstitutional (and that the Framers of the Constitution would be horrified that anyone could think that it was not).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Repubs, and dems, don't give a crap. They are both owned by corporations. Congress has, something like, a 10% approval rating, and a 90% retention rate.
Throw the bums out, vote 3rd party. It is the only way we will ever have real change.
The differences between our two parties on many important issues around privacy, rule of law, and freedom of speech are mostly negligable. Both parties are pretty pathetic, if not defacto evil.
Quote: "'They're going after people who are really not criminals,' said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor "
Ummm, hey Mr. Lawer Dude: why should they be allowed to impound ANY non-criminal item from ANYONE? It's one thing to remove, say, guns and illegal drugs when arriving with a warrant. It's another to say "hey, I bet that cash and those guns are illegal so let's take them " (and the car they're in -- the car is often taken as well) It's been pretty well established that local police depts use the forfeiture laws as a moneymaking operation. How about we take property the old-fashioned (joke) way: after conviction, or at the very least, grand-jury indictment?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Administrative seizures of money without an associated criminal case began in earnest in 2012. I don't recall, who was running the administration? Perhaps he had more flexibility after he was re-elected.
*Facepalm*
;)
// Both with lowercase first letters.
The GP refers to the 501(c)(4) scandal last year, not to any particular changes in law.
Looks like the liberals are just waiting for their turn to feel mock indignation about something.
/ More liberal than conservative.
In totally unrelated news, the thief responsible for a string of high-profile burglaries in New York State was acquitted after promising he wouldn't do it anymore. Questions from the victims regarding their lost property went unanswered.
Police stop you, and take all of your money, because they think you were going to use the money for drugs.
IMO in many cases they probably don't think the money is going to be used for drugs, but they want the money for a new margarita machine and so they have to claim that they believe the money is drug money to create the legal basis to take the money from you. That is, the cops will say it's drug money even when they don't really think that, but they just really, really want the money.
Whoa, that's messed up!
Every business is guilty of structuring under these rules.
Yes, that's the beauty of it. Everyone can be stolen from. Right now, it's happening in small increments. If there's a real financial crisis, I can foresee every small business in the USA losing their money on the same day.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Hey, it could be worse right? It's not like they'll forcibly rape you in the ass without evidence.
Oh, wait.
Thinking of cops as anything but thugs that view everyone else as the enemy, who they can lie to, kidnap, steal from, and beat/tase/mace with total impunity, is naivete now reserved only for the people who have not yet been unfortunate enough to catch a cops eye (which doesn't require doing anything illegal). These people think that not all cops are bad simply because they see them not abusing someone, and the fact that many targets of the police are criminals who need to be removed from society. That doesn't excuse the fact that any cop who doesn't, at least sometimes, violate peoples rights (the friendly cop who helped you out probably also civilly forfeited his department a new margarita machine/zamboni/trip to disney-all real, btw), is at a minimum covering for his buddies that do. The entire system is rotten to the core: there are no good cops, only cops that are less pure evil and closer to how cops should act (that is, they occasionally arrest someone who deserves it without violating their rights).