Completely seriously; while I’m sure essentially no one actually does, the IRS is not going to like network with the FBI or your local police department if you, for some reason, decide to pay taxes on your weed sale profits. Unless you report that you’re selling sex slaves they seriously could not care less.
I know it’s just a joke image but I do love the idea of someone who makes much of their money illegally but also has this very honorable commitment to paying their fair share in taxes.
I know it’s just a joke image but I do love the idea of someone who makes much of their money illegally but also has this very honorable commitment to paying their fair share in taxes.
If you’re convicted of criminal activity you’d be smart to include that in your taxes. The last thing you need is to be convicted of tax fraud in addition to getting convicted of drug trafficking. If the government already has a record of you profiting from criminal activity, make sure you give them their cut.
More specifically the IRS field book discourages reporting illegal income to other agencies for basically everything besides terrorism. Also, when you file taxes there’s a reason there’s an “other income” field. Nobody expects you to list “MS-13” as your employer. You can report money earned from illegal activities to avoid additional federal charges being tacked on
Exactly. I’ve seen such a gigantic rise in like “conspiracy-everything” posts online (wherein people seemingly assume that everything ever done by the government is in some way a poorly concealed conspiracy) and i think anyone who has actually worked under government funding can pretty quickly attest that this just… isn’t how things work.
All these “little conspiracies” operate under the assumption that the US government is this hyper-connected, ultra advanced and professional shadowy room where everyone is out to get non-government employees for vague purposes (“they just want to have control… man…”.)
When really, 99% of government employees are like some guy or gal you went to high school with who is working in a cubicle because the benefits are pretty decent
Anyway, not to make the joke post too serious. I just always worry the naively minded might take posts like this too seriously lol
And reporting “other income” wouldn’t flag you as a likely criminal anyway, unless it was a massive amount. They don’t know if you got it from selling weed, picking pockets, or mowing your neighbor’s lawn (no, Bill is not going to submit a form 1099 for you, he’s just going to hire a professional lawn service instead if you’re going to be weird about it).
Actually what happened is that some criminal got caught. And in addition to everything, he was accused of tax fraud. He successfully argued though, that because there wasn’t a field to properly declare his taxes, rhat he would be committing fraud by lying about his income, and as such had no option. This is what led to those fields to exist
Also you’re allowed to plead the fifth on the origin of the income IIRC, though honestly that’s just as likely to get you looked at by the FBI/local constabulary.
On the other hand if you’re making enough money illegally to feel the need to declare it on your taxes (either for ethical reasons or because you don’t want to get done like Al Capone) law enforcement is probably already looking at you.
The IRS doesn’t report it to the FBI because that’s not their job. If you’re already under investigation and the FBI asks, they’ll hand over the info, but they won’t initiate anything, they just want their cut.
If you get paid money legally and just… transfer it a bunch through various banking accounts or similar. That is obviously not illegal in any way.
If you get paid money legally and then say, “buy a lot of car washes” at the car wash your cousin owns and then he pays you the money back and you two don’t report that to the IRS, that would be tax fraud (though laws on “gifting” money get pretty vague)
Basically, it’s really hard to somehow illegally “launder” clean money
I think it was an episode of Suits or something similar where a guy was divorcing his wife but wanted to hide certain legal assets but hide it from his wife.
The episode made it sound like he had to launder the money so it looked like, on paper, it didn’t belong to him and it implied that it wasn’t legal but they did it anyway. I can’t remember the details but basically why I asked.
If it’s legal money, then you aren’t laundering it. Transferring money you’ve obtained legally is just transferring money. It’s only money laundering by definition if the money was illegally gained.
Completely seriously; while I’m sure essentially no one actually does, the IRS is not going to like network with the FBI or your local police department if you, for some reason, decide to pay taxes on your weed sale profits. Unless you report that you’re selling sex slaves they seriously could not care less.
I know it’s just a joke image but I do love the idea of someone who makes much of their money illegally but also has this very honorable commitment to paying their fair share in taxes.
If you’re convicted of criminal activity you’d be smart to include that in your taxes. The last thing you need is to be convicted of tax fraud in addition to getting convicted of drug trafficking. If the government already has a record of you profiting from criminal activity, make sure you give them their cut.
As the joker once said:
More specifically the IRS field book discourages reporting illegal income to other agencies for basically everything besides terrorism. Also, when you file taxes there’s a reason there’s an “other income” field. Nobody expects you to list “MS-13” as your employer. You can report money earned from illegal activities to avoid additional federal charges being tacked on
Exactly. I’ve seen such a gigantic rise in like “conspiracy-everything” posts online (wherein people seemingly assume that everything ever done by the government is in some way a poorly concealed conspiracy) and i think anyone who has actually worked under government funding can pretty quickly attest that this just… isn’t how things work.
All these “little conspiracies” operate under the assumption that the US government is this hyper-connected, ultra advanced and professional shadowy room where everyone is out to get non-government employees for vague purposes (“they just want to have control… man…”.)
When really, 99% of government employees are like some guy or gal you went to high school with who is working in a cubicle because the benefits are pretty decent
Anyway, not to make the joke post too serious. I just always worry the naively minded might take posts like this too seriously lol
The number of people in government who get promoted because they’re awful and that’s the easiest way for their boss to be rid of them…
In my experience this is essentially never the case. I struggle to think of a circumstance where it would be
And reporting “other income” wouldn’t flag you as a likely criminal anyway, unless it was a massive amount. They don’t know if you got it from selling weed, picking pockets, or mowing your neighbor’s lawn (no, Bill is not going to submit a form 1099 for you, he’s just going to hire a professional lawn service instead if you’re going to be weird about it).
IRS isn’t a snitch
Actually what happened is that some criminal got caught. And in addition to everything, he was accused of tax fraud. He successfully argued though, that because there wasn’t a field to properly declare his taxes, rhat he would be committing fraud by lying about his income, and as such had no option. This is what led to those fields to exist
Kudos to whoever that was. It’s not easy to beat the IRS
The premise of it is basically to have an easier way to prosecute organized crime since those folks rarely are keeping honest books.
Also you’re allowed to plead the fifth on the origin of the income IIRC, though honestly that’s just as likely to get you looked at by the FBI/local constabulary.
On the other hand if you’re making enough money illegally to feel the need to declare it on your taxes (either for ethical reasons or because you don’t want to get done like Al Capone) law enforcement is probably already looking at you.
The IRS doesn’t report it to the FBI because that’s not their job. If you’re already under investigation and the FBI asks, they’ll hand over the info, but they won’t initiate anything, they just want their cut.
It isn’t. (pdf)
I am obviously not claiming the image is fake, I’m claiming it’s being used in a joking context
Slightly related question: is money laundering, in itself, illegal?
Like, say I have $1000 from my regular W-2 job, taxes paid.
I launder it through a bunch of accounts. Is that illegal?
Or is it the mixing with dirty funds that makes it illegal?
Not sure you can “launder” clean money.
If you get paid money legally and just… transfer it a bunch through various banking accounts or similar. That is obviously not illegal in any way.
If you get paid money legally and then say, “buy a lot of car washes” at the car wash your cousin owns and then he pays you the money back and you two don’t report that to the IRS, that would be tax fraud (though laws on “gifting” money get pretty vague)
Basically, it’s really hard to somehow illegally “launder” clean money
I think it was an episode of Suits or something similar where a guy was divorcing his wife but wanted to hide certain legal assets but hide it from his wife.
The episode made it sound like he had to launder the money so it looked like, on paper, it didn’t belong to him and it implied that it wasn’t legal but they did it anyway. I can’t remember the details but basically why I asked.
If it’s legal money, then you aren’t laundering it. Transferring money you’ve obtained legally is just transferring money. It’s only money laundering by definition if the money was illegally gained.