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The IRS Decides Who To Audit By Data Mining Social Media (typepad.com)
In America the Internal Revenue Service used to pick who got audited based on math mistakes or discrepancies with W-2 forms -- but not any more. schwit1 shares an article from the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law describing their new technique:
The IRS is now engaging in data mining of public and commercial data pools (including social media) and creating highly detailed profiles of taxpayers upon which to run data analytics. This article argues that current IRS practices, mostly unknown to the general public, are violating fair information practices. This lack of transparency and accountability not only violates federal law regarding the government's data collection activities and use of predictive algorithms, but may also result in discrimination. While the potential efficiencies that big data analytics provides may appear to be a panacea for the IRS's budget woes, unchecked these activities are a significant threat to privacy [PDF]. Other concerns regarding the IRS's entrance into big data are raised including the potential for political targeting, data breaches, and the misuse of such information.
While tax evasion cost the U.S.$3 trillion between 2000 and 2009, one of the report's authors argues that people should be aware âoethat what they say and do onlineâ could be used against them.
While tax evasion cost the U.S.$3 trillion between 2000 and 2009, one of the report's authors argues that people should be aware âoethat what they say and do onlineâ could be used against them.
If you don't cheat on your taxes, you have nothing to worry about no matter how they decide whom to audit.
Not true. I was audited and fined for honest mistakes. The auditor didn't even catch the cheating.
After all, if you declare on your tax return that your annual income is $30,000 and your Facebook page is full of pictures of you taking vacations in Hawaii, Fiji, Bermuda, etc., as well as photos taken from your first class seat in the airplane, then they have good reason to audit you. As long as they're searching public information only (eg. your PUBLIC Facebook profile and Twitter account) and not using special government powers to look at private information which would not be viewable by the general public, then I don't see a problem with this. You have no expectation of privacy when you post your vacation pictures to your public Facebook profile.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Being audited requires production of huge amounts of paperwork, some of which you may not have. Even if you are honest about the numbers, it's kind of like being audited by the Business Software Alliance: the requirements for a license to be legal in the EULA are far looser than the requirements the BSA lays upon you, such as requiring that all receipts for all software purchased have your business name on them or requiring that you have the original installation media for the OS for the license to be valid even though the COA sticker and a matching license code entered in the installed OS is the only thing that's actually supposed to be required according to their own EULA. The IRS is no different. They may ask for receipts that have since been lost or damaged and on that basis alone you could lose thousands of dollars plus late fees and penalties to multiply those thousands further.
If nothing else, it is a major disruption to being able to run your business. It costs you money even if you're completely in the right. Posting anonymously because of fucking shit like this.
No facebook, no snapchat, no tinder, no grinder. Fact is, I'm as close to 100% out of social media as can be. I don't understand people who are into social media, I don't hang out with them. They're like smokers were 10-20 years ago. You want to take a pic of me and post it to FB? Um, no, I'll just step out. I find out you put a pic of me on FB without my knowledge and best case, you ain't my friend. Worst case I sue you.
You must have never been audited before. Audits cost time and money and you have to prove every little thing you claimed on your tax returns. It's meant to catch cheaters but it very often times also catches out people who are simply not prepared for one and even if you manage to get through one without getting whacked with interest or penalties you still spent quite a significant amount of time and money to do so.
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
I told you not to try to deduct those Brazzers live webcam subscriptions as business expenses.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Being audited requires production of huge amounts of paperwork
If you get audited, the first thing you should do is hire the best tax attorney that you can afford. Once you have legal representation, the IRS is required to deal directly with your tax lawyer, and can not contact you directly. Your attorney can cut way down on excessive demands for paperwork and documentation, which are mostly just fishing expeditions to intimidate naive taxpayers into agreeing to a "settlement" just to get the harassment to stop.
Of course, if you are poor, and can't afford a tax attorney, then you are screwed.
After all, if you declare on your tax return that your annual income is $30,000 and your Facebook page is full of pictures of you taking vacations in Hawaii, Fiji, Bermuda, etc., as well as photos taken from your first class seat in the airplane, then they have good reason to audit you. As long as they're searching public information only (eg. your PUBLIC Facebook profile and Twitter account) and not using special government powers to look at private information which would not be viewable by the general public, then I don't see a problem with this. You have no expectation of privacy when you post your vacation pictures to your public Facebook profile.
I've often wondered whether this sort of data can be used as evidence.
Recently someone live-streamed themselves driving drunk (in Miami, IIRC) and posted it to youtube, and were subsequently arrested and charged. I can suppose that he was also caught on traffic cameras, but what if he wasn't?
There's no reason why this sort of information can't be faked - I could easily make up a FB account to presents myself as much richer than I actually am, I could fake a live-stream drunk driving video, and I can simply put "PhD" after my name for more status. People fake news events all the time, and some of it gets reported by the press.
Absent any corroborating evidence, could social media data be used to convict?
If someone fakes a drunk-driving video and is arrested, can the police then be sued for false arrest?
How much of a legal responsibility do we have for saying only the truth online?
There is also the Medical Information Bureau, the credit bureaus, ChoicePoint, retailers, and so many other databases out there. And this is been going on for many many years. Back in '91, I dated a lawyer and she made a comment one time - "With someone's social security number, you can find out anything about that person." And that was 26 years ago when storage and computers were expensive.
This shows how government without breaking the law on spying on Americans (yeah, I know - like they care) can build a dossier on folks that would be an East German Stasi agent's wet dream.
And it also shows this filing taxes is just one big stupid waste of time for folks who have W-2 jobs. They should just do what is done in some European countries. At the end of the year, you get a statement saying how much you paid.
This is no different than people who post on facebook themselves water skiing while taking big buck in worker's comp payments and have multi-million dollar lawsuits in the works.
I'm sorry. Anything you post is fair game. If you are a bad criminal, it is survival of the fittest. Dumb ones go to jail. Smart ones live comfortably in Costa Rica.
Looking at publicly available (and in most cases self published) information isn't a violation of privacy by any sane definition. It may legitimately constitute something we don't like and may want to proscribe our government from doing, but it's not a privacy issue. Words; they used to mean things.
Audits cost time and money and you have to prove every little thing you claimed on your tax returns.
Exactly so don't you want governments to use all publicly available data to ensure they only audit the people who need auditing rather than wasting both their time and other's auditing people who have filled in their returns honestly?
I would have objections if they were forcing websites to disclose private information on users but if people have posted this information on a publicly available website for all to see they should not complain when someone does see it and if that data reduces the number of audits of honest people we all benefit.
Been personally audited twice.
First I looked over all the paperwork they saw I had made a mistake and ended up paying around $400 after all the penalties and interest.
Second they wanted around $4500 I looked over all the paperwork saw where I had made a mistake, submitted an amendment to that years taxes showing how I checked the wrong boxes and within two months the IRS had sent me a check for my overpayment.
If SocialMedia like '%conservative%'
Audit;
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"argues that people should be aware that what they say and do online could be used against them." Now that's going to be news to many people. Especially if you think you are a right thinking individual.
It was fine when all the IRS did wrong was screw conservative non-profits... no one got fired or punished.
Making the tax collector a political weapon was not a problem for Obama.
Why worry now ? Oh... you don't like it now that Trump is in.... I see.....
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Some wisdom:
A dollar coming out of the government is not a dollar coming in. In other words, your taxes do not pay for services.
What happens is that, if the government overspends, as it has done every year I have been alive except for 2 or 3 in the late 90s, the money is created out of thin air to make up the deficit.
The only reason taxation exists is to preserve the fiction that my first point is not true, and thereby hold down inflation.
If people grasped the fundamental nature of fiat currency, they'd rebel against the idea and the system would go south almost immediately.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
First I like it because it's another reason not to give your data to so-called 'social' sites.
Second, it's ironic that now people snitch themselves to the IRS instead of their neighbor snitching to it.
They go under medical expenses. It's therapy.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Basic logic.
What government has more ways to screw with you?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sorry let me correct that:
Someone whom's job.