IRS Suffers Staggering Defeat

[mitchel]

Wow. Way to evade the IRS.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Perry404

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Perry404

Originally posted by: Craig234
Morally, the tax evaders are in the wrong, IMO. I don't know why some on the right -and I don't mean Perry by this - seem to have an insatiable appetite for people 'getting away' with things like this.

It seems to go to some character issue for many of them, not unlike the stories of the 'Bush arrogant smirk' when confronted at Harvard about advocating the war while avoiding serving.

The story is 'interesting' and a 'clever idea', but I think it'd be best left at that, told for interest, not used for attempting to evade paying real taxes.

The bottom line is, is the income tax itself immoral, justifying refusing to pay it? Is it even arguably some gray area where it's justified not to pay it if you can find some scam out of it?

No, this is the equivalent of trying to take advantage of a coupon accidentally saying $100 off instead of $1.00 off, the equivalent of keeping the money when a cashier gives you too much back.

Either you don't seem to grasp that many people firmly & honestly believe that the income tax is unconstitutional or you're attacking the individuals right to protest with a cheap character assault. Only you know which of these is the truth. Either way you are by bypassing one side of the argument.

You're trying to say one of two things is true. Let's look at each.

Do I think some people might misguidedly think the Income Tax is unconstitutional?

There are a couple of issues on that topic - one, what is the law, and two, what is right.

And on the law, there are two issues: what our opinion is, and what the law is for all practical purposes. Now, I'm of the opinion that the constitutional amendment passed to allow the income tax did just that, and I'm aware some people say otherwise. We could debate who's right. But the second issue seemse pretty clear - rightly or wrongly, the law is what the Supreme Court says it is, and they have said the Income tax is constitutional; people are in jail for not paying income taxes who the Court lets sit in jail.

So, what's the practical effect on the legal issue? Do you want to try to win a debate, which I don't think you will win, but even if you do, leaves you with no option but revolution?

If you want to win the argument on any practical level, you need to amend the constitution again, making it clear the income tax is not allowed, and public opinion opposes you.

Feel free to try to get people to agree to pass that amendment, but that's a far argument from thinking you can say it's unconstitutional now for any practical issue.

On the second issue, whether the Income tax is right or not, it seems to me that in our modern society, it's needed, as a progressive tax. I think it's served the nation well.

Do you want to return the US to the days of an agrarian society with small government where tariffs are used instead? I don't think that would work or be good for people, and I view a national sales tax that replaces the income tax as regressive. What I see are complaints about the excesses and corruption and imperfections of our government used for trying to justify breaking the system worse than it's already broken by not taxing adequately for the government to function.

It's a little like people who don't like the random drunk drive checkpoints trying to abolish the police force.

The radical reactions of the anti-income tax crowd aren't bad because they're radical, sometimes radical is best; they're bad because I think they'd harm our country severely.

And perhaps more importantly, I think it's unfortunately that the people who fixate on that approach are not doing much that I see to fix the issues more practical ways.

I can't recall ever seeing a post from someone saying their first choice is anti-income tax, but in the meantime they're also fighting for campaign finance reform.

If you honestly believe that because I or anyone else believe the income tax is unjust, that we somehow are of less character then you are a poor judge of character. Gandhi broke law because he believed some laws are unjust. Would you say he was of little character?

In fact Gandhis case was weaker as he lost in court.
These people were not found guilty and are therefor innocent.
I really don't feel like repeating myself. My views are well. known.
Low taxes and a non-interventionist foreign policy means the government can't do great amount of damage as has our government over the past fifty years. Millions of bodies strewn across the land because of our righteous indignation.

You certainly failed to respond to most of my post.

For what you did respond to, you greatly misread the point I made about character. I'm not sure how much more clear I could have been when I excluded you by name from the comment for you to then suggest you were included - that's quite a reading comprehension issue. The point I made about character was not for an opinion on the income tax, but, as I clearly said, about the people who have an excessive glee in 'getting away' with things, like this guy tried to do, and many giggled at his attempt.

Comparing the anti-income tax movement to Gandhi is more than laughable, it's offensive.

I say that as one who thinks Gandhi had his good and bad, but at least his cause was far more significant than the method of taxation at best, greed under a veneer at worst.

You really don't help yourself be taken seriously by trying to wrap yourself in Gandhi for this issue.

I'm with you on the wrongs government has done, but your solution is not a solution, it's something to make things worse.

The very last thing to go in government - something it will always have - is the power to do wrong. Even a very small and weak government can do great wrong. But what slashing it can do is to prevent the good it can do, and to allow an alternative power to surpass it which is feudalistic in nature, returning our society to one of many serfs and few with massive wealth and power, and all your political theory about freedom and government will suddenly be irrelevant, as you won't have any say any longer.

We do need to improve things, those millions of bodies are real, but your approach will prevent the solutions.

But you had so little to say to my previous post, I feel I'm wasting my time saying more.

 

[lupi]

Interesting read. One of the things I'd do is have someone on the stand answer if someone could take one of those $50 coins to a store and use it, and if they did so to buy a $5 gallon of milk how much change would they get back.

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: Craig234


You certainly failed to respond to most of my post.

For what you did respond to, you greatly misread the point I made about character. I'm not sure how much more clear I could have been when I excluded you by name from the comment for you to then suggest you were included - that's quite a reading comprehension issue. The point I made about character was not for an opinion on the income tax, but, as I clearly said, about the people who have an excessive glee in 'getting away' with things, like this guy tried to do, and many giggled at his attempt.

Comparing the anti-income tax movement to Gandhi is more than laughable, it's offensive.

I say that as one who thinks Gandhi had his good and bad, but at least his cause was far more significant than the method of taxation at best, greed under a veneer at worst.

You really don't help yourself be taken seriously by trying to wrap yourself in Gandhi for this issue.

I'm with you on the wrongs government has done, but your solution is not a solution, it's something to make things worse.

The very last thing to go in government - something it will always have - is the power to do wrong. Even a very small and weak government can do great wrong. But what slashing it can do is to prevent the good it can do, and to allow an alternative power to surpass it which is feudalistic in nature, returning our society to one of many serfs and few with massive wealth and power, and all your political theory about freedom and government will suddenly be irrelevant, as you won't have any say any longer.

We do need to improve things, those millions of bodies are real, but your approach will prevent the solutions.

But you had so little to say to my previous post, I feel I'm wasting my time saying more.

Because those people to whom you're referring ("those people giggling")
have absolutely nothing to do with the original post. You're attempting to turn this thread into something it is not. How about keeping it on topic. The subject of the OP much closer to protest & law than it is to how we can break the law and get away with it.

 

[bamacre]

I would very much like to see spending cut drastically and the IRS tossed into the garbage can where it belongs. If income taxes aren't bad enough, actually filling out the forms is the biggest invasion of privacy I've ever experienced.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: bamacre
I would very much like to see spending cut drastically and the IRS tossed into the garbage can where it belongs. If income taxes aren't bad enough, actually filling out the forms is the biggest invasion of privacy I've ever experienced.

IRS BAD TAX BAD HOW IS BABBY FORM

 

[Special K]

That is a very interesting case. I have one question right away - how did Kahre obtain a steady source of these coins large enough to use as payroll for his employees? Even though these coins are still technically in circulation, wouldn't they qualify more as collectibles than currency, due to their gold content?

If so, then I'm not seeing how Kahre hoped to profit from this unless he paid far less than market value for the coins. For example, let's assume Kahre paid market value (in FRN) for the coins. He then turns around and pays his workers according to the face value of the coins, rather than their value in FRN. He and his workers save money on taxes because the face value of the coins paid falls below the reporting threshold for taxable income. So he pays full price for the coins, then saves some fraction of that amount because he doesn't have to pay taxes on it? It still sounds like he is losing money.

It's like paying $100 to get $25 back. That is an oversimplification, but unless Kahre obtained the coins for far less than market value, I just don't see how he could have profited from this.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: superstition

However, America?s other monetary system ? gold and silver coins ? does not decrease in value. It becomes more valuable in terms of FRNs. Americans, though, rely on the FRN, and its rapid decline will sooner than later decimate the middle class, Hansen said.

Take socialist Karl Marx?s theory, for example. He believed the most effective way to obliterate the middle class involved a system of progressive taxation coupled with inflation. In the Federal Reserve?s case, if the bank continues to inflate the currency so that everybody moves into higher and higher tax brackets, eventually everybody will pay 30 to 40 percent of their income to taxes in Federal Reserve Notes, all while the FRN decreases in value due to inflation.

?By using the gold coins, Kahre was beating Karl Marx, the socialists and the liberals who want people to pay more and more so they can have bigger and bigger government,? Hansen said. ?Kahre challenged the whole system and that?s why the IRS came down so hard on him and his associates.

?The IRS doesn?t want this going on; they want you to use their fiat money and be forced into higher tax brackets through progressive taxation coupled with inflation. That way there?s no limit on the money they can issue and inflate.?

This is propagandistic distortion, because there is nothing inherent in progressive taxation that requires it to be unfair and kill the middle class. If progressive taxation is implemented correctly, it's the fairest system because it taxes people according to what they can, and should, be able to give back. It takes into account that money/resources helps people to get more money/resources, unlike the stealthily regressive "flat" tax the rich so often promote.

Progressive taxation is, like any taxation, supposed to be the way a government supports the common good by reducing stratification. Progressive taxation is the best form of taxation because it erodes stratification most effectively. Fear-mongering in the form of "progressive taxation will eliminate stratification" is not justified because the rich control all societies and will not eliminate stratification. And, even with progressive taxation, the rich will create loopholes to make it regressive. So fear not! The great ("socialist") evil that is fairness will never come to pass, at least not for long at all.

This article also conveniently avoids mentioning that income tax brackets are indexed for inflation. So if the dollar reduces in value by 10% because of inflation, the tax brackets broaden by 10%, and assuming your "real" income remains unchanged, your real take-home pay will remain the same.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: Special K
That is a very interesting case. I have one question right away - how did Kahre obtain a steady source of these coins large enough to use as payroll for his employees? Even though these coins are still technically in circulation, wouldn't they qualify more as collectibles than currency, due to their gold content?

If so, then I'm not seeing how Kahre hoped to profit from this unless he paid far less than market value for the coins. For example, let's assume Kahre paid market value (in FRN) for the coins. He then turns around and pays his workers according to the face value of the coins, rather than their value in FRN. He and his workers save money on taxes because the face value of the coins paid falls below the reporting threshold for taxable income. So he pays full price for the coins, then saves some fraction of that amount because he doesn't have to pay taxes on it? It still sounds like he is losing money.

It's like paying $100 to get $25 back. That is an oversimplification, but unless Kahre obtained the coins for far less than market value, I just don't see how he could have profited from this.

I didn't think about that. Where did these coins come from?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: Fern
[ ... ]
If the business owner is paying his employees in these coins, but claiming only "$50" worth it would mean his corresponding deduction would also be $50. I.e., he's not really geting a wage deduction for employee pay; this would mean his business income is artificially high and he would be paying a lot more in income tax.

So, income taxes would be paid, just by the employer not the employee. It would indicate that SS taxes were the only thing not collected by the government.

Fern

I don't think so. I imagine the business owner was deducting the purchase cost of the coins as a business expense. This would reduce his overall profit just the same as a traditional payroll, meaning his income taxes would be no higher than normal. He would then claim the face value of the coin as payroll, reducing his FICA expenses as you suggest.

That's my speculation.

Could be. But that implies all kinds of other accounting/tax irregularities not mentioned.

Fern

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

ROFL, too bad inflation only matters if wages don't keep up and, over the long run, they mostly have. Nice boogeyman, but it's BS.

and when wages go up due to CoA adjustments, with no corresponding change in the tax brackets (which do change but not quickly, and AMT hasn't changed at all), more people get taxed at higher brackets despite having the same real income.

of course, that is only true when CoA adjustments don't overstate inflation. considering that gov't numbers for inflation have probably overstated inflation for most of the last 50 years, CoA adjustments have ended up mostly increasing real income.

and to the extent that the tax brackets change with official CoA people have been taxed at lower rates over time despite having the same real income.

Originally posted by: Perry404

Either you don't seem to grasp that many people firmly & honestly believe that the income tax is unconstitutional

no one who has done research honestly believes that the income tax is unconstitutional because you'd have to be intellectually dishonest to think so.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Perry404
Because those people to whom you're referring ("those people giggling")
have absolutely nothing to do with the original post. You're attempting to turn this thread into something it is not. How about keeping it on topic. The subject of the OP much closer to protest & law than it is to how we can break the law and get away with it.

You still have failed to respond to most of my post. It was about much more than the gigglers.

If you didn't pretend that was it was all about and that you were a target etc., it'd be on topic.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Here's the thing I'm wondering, in our Constitution it states that no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of debt. So aren't they supposed to accept gold and silver by law?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
Here's the thing I'm wondering, in our Constitution it states that no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of debt. So aren't they supposed to accept gold and silver by law?

Yeah, good idea. The IRS should have told him he needed to pay his taxes in those gold coins and he could only use the face value.

Fern

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
Here's the thing I'm wondering, in our Constitution it states that no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of debt. So aren't they supposed to accept gold and silver by law?

Congress can denote what currency should or shouldn't be allowed.

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." [11] But he also warned against treating the Constitution as "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please."

Jefferson advocated that the Constitution should change, albeit within the constraints of the people's ability to retain their freedom.

 

[Phokus]

Didn't Wesley Snipes get sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion today?

 

[sadguy]

Originally posted by: Phokus
Didn't Wesley Snipes get sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion today?

No. he was sentenced for failing to file.

if he filed, he would've gotten off scott free, and you wouldn't hear a peep from the press.

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: sadguy
No. he was sentenced for failing to file.

if he filed, he would've gotten off scott free, and you wouldn't hear a peep from the press.

This is grossly misleading. Wesley Snipes got off the tax fraud charges because jury members were convinced that Snipes may have bee suckered into participating in the scheme rather than honestly knowing that he was committing tax fraud. Note that his two tax preparers WERE convicted of the more serious charges of tax fraud. If Wesley Snipes had in fact submitted tax returns for those years, it would be far less convincing that he could have knowing done so while honestly believing he owned no money for those years given he knew how much money he was earning each of those years. (Under most circumstances it should only be people at the very bottom rungs of the income brackets who actually end up paying no taxes.)

The other practical reality is while some members of the jury probably were reluctant to convict him on all charges and potentially subject him to such a large jail sentence, they did feel he was guilty of deliberately not paying his taxes and they had to convict him on some of the charges. If they didn't have the lesser charges as an option they almost certainly would have agreed to some fraud count. (While ideally juries should not operate this way, in practice they tend to do so in some cases.)

 

[MadRat]

A jury these days has nearly zero leeway. If they rule one way or another it is for specifics.

 

[OFFascist]

Originally posted by: Special K
That is a very interesting case. I have one question right away - how did Kahre obtain a steady source of these coins large enough to use as payroll for his employees? Even though these coins are still technically in circulation, wouldn't they qualify more as collectibles than currency, due to their gold content?

I dont know about him specifically but anyone can buy them online from a company that sells gold or silver bullion, such as APMEX.

Most of these coins arent usually sold for thier collectability although they have some, they are bought as sold mostly for thier metal value.

The American Eagle line of bullion coins though do have a face value and are legal tender, but you would be a fucking idiot to go to a grocery store to pay with them. A 1oz Gold American Eagle has a face value of $50, if you go to the grocery store and pay with it its worth $50, unless ofcourse you are selling it to someone on the spot for more than that.

Its metal value is about $900 these days, so what you would really do it is either sell it for cash , there are many ways to do it, ebay, craigslist, coin dealers, flea market whatever then use that cash to buy whatever. Or you could just stick the coin in your Roth IRA.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
Here's the thing I'm wondering, in our Constitution it states that no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of debt. So aren't they supposed to accept gold and silver by law?

Congress can denote what currency should or shouldn't be allowed.

Afaik, the government granted the Federal Reserve the ability to issue currency as money, but has it restricted the acceptance of gold and silver as legal tender? I haven't been able to find out much about that.

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." [11] But he also warned against treating the Constitution as "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please."

Jefferson advocated that the Constitution should change, albeit within the constraints of the people's ability to retain their freedom.

Jefferson was also completely against the idea of a central bank.