Why the IRS Taxes Illegal Income
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
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Criminal: "I got to make 1.2 million just off a bank robbery"
IRS: "That's cool, but I'm still gonna need to take a cut"
🤣🤣🤣
Edit: I mean..... True
The irs is the best bank robber
IRS: "WE made 1.2 millions"
@@bornstar481 no, that would be the treasury department.
@@govcorpwatch - 😂😂😂😂
Even the Joker pays his taxes, he is crazy enough to fight Batman but not enough to oppose the IRS
It would fit the joker but was this actually in some batman Media like a comic or cartoon
@@chheinrich8486 it's from one of the animated series ruclips.net/video/G56VgsLfKY4/видео.html
@@chheinrich8486 The New Batman Adventures, episode 7.
Oh man, I was literally about to write this comment. You beta me to it
Between this and him fighting Red Skull, because he might be a criminal lunatic but he is an american criminal lunatic, joker realy has his priorities in order
A retired IRS agent once told me that he had an inquiry about how a sex worker could report her income. They settled on "laundry services", as she did have to wash the sheets after every client.
Based agent.
The Sex iS free, but the LAUNDRY is NOT
Good one 😅
@@sagestrings869 pay for my laundry business with a free addition of Sex
Ah the technical loophole.
I actually did ask an accountant this once, for research purposes naturally 😉. From what they told me the IRS does have an obligation to collect income but doesn't have an obligation to report criminal activities, so it is basically like a more sinister version of how an EMT needs to know if you took any illegal substances but isn't required to report what you took. It's a loophole they found to allow them to slap charges on criminals while avoiding violating your constitutional rights, since technically you just need to report the income, though law enforcement can still request your tax documents.
“Shitttttt, keep this up and we ain’t gonna tell anyone😅”
The 5th amendment is what makes this work
Law enforcement has to have probable cause that will hold up in court to request tax information.
@@adamorick2872 Though that's usually the standard to obtain anything requiring a search warrant.
But are they forced to protect it? Because then they are still forcing you to incriminate yourself.
For example, lets say you're a hitman, and you took out the head of the IRS, and you reported that income to the IRS (because you are legally forced to), do we not think the IRS is going to report this? If they didn't like that guy, maybe not, but if they did like their boss or knew they would be head of the crime syndicate soon they might feel like reporting that...
I'm so happy H&R block is there to help me pay taxes after H&R block lobbied the government to make it harder for me to do it myself.
The IRS has a free tax return form filler, you're free to read the instructions and do all the calculations they considered too complicated to build into the application.
It's free for anyone, not saying if couldn't be better and there definitely should be a better way but it is what it is.
Just an FYI as to what OP is alluding to: most developed nations have the government do their citizens’ taxes and send the results to them later to double check with little risk of an audit. Companies like H&R Block and TurboTax keep lobbying the US government to not allow this because such a basic and sensible thing would run them out of their business of making the annual time of “we’ve made this confusing on purpose and you could be in prison or worse, poor, if you don’t understand or pay these people money to understand for you” a thing for years to come. And too many people as per usual still don’t know other nations besides the US exist and we’re stuck with this system for the foreseeable future
@@thecollinanderson i wish we we could stop begging to catch up to actual developed countries and just do it, make it easier to do the right thing instead of significantly harder to do the right thing. Same for education costs. Sheesh.
@@ZentaBon College became more expensive than it should be over the past several decades because of the emergence of the regularity with which people borrow money from the Department of Education for student loans. It’s a perverse positive feedback loop:
- oh so many 18 year olds apparently don’t know how money works so they take out more in student loans than they reasonably should
- the Department of Education hands out as much money to people as they ask for (roughly speaking)
- colleges get their money no matter what
- every year more and more people want to go to college because of de-industrialization and offshoring of blue collar jobs (predominantly starting in the 1970s)
- most 18 year olds apparently don’t know how money works so frequently take out enormous loans
- the Department of Education hands out enormous loans for some reason
- colleges obviously want as much money as possible so keep raising tuition rates
- people have to take out larger and larger loans in order to pay for continually inflating tuition costs
Etc. etc……..
-
@@thecollinanderson most people can’t that’s why they go to H&R block head
Some jerk: Steals candy from the baby
Some IRS employees: Oh. There's a tax for that.
Oversimplified reference, nice 🎉
I believe I read somewhere that they cannot use the fact that you declared income on your taxes to prosecute you for how you came about that income. So, if you say you got money for killing someone, they can't use that in court to prove that you killed someone.
Yeah but it'll definetly prompt an investigation
Double jeopardy.
Checkmate.
They probably can't report you, but they can use the return as evidence in court. At least, they've successfully done it before and won in front of the Supreme Court. Your lawyer could certainly still attempt to suppress the evidence.
That'd probably still count as an admission of guilt, however an admission of guilt by itself isn't necessarily enough to convict someone, mostly because we have in the past seen people admit guilt to crimes they hadn't committed for one reason or another (e.g. stress in long interrogations, but also plenty harder to understand situations).
@p o p of what
Got a lawyer friend who insists his clients report their drug dealing income to family court for child support. The people who do aren’t investigated for underreporting income because their income matches their lifestyle and no one really asks where the money comes from so they go on with their lives unbothered. Those who don’t, get investigated and imprisoned. You cannot run from the tax man.
Fake. Because when u go to file taxes u have no docs to substantiate income. Which draws greater attention.
If I remember it right, this same tax system is how mob bosses like Al Capone was caught and stay arrested: his unreported income from the operations.
It's an old system, but it even makes criminals say they have cash flow.
@@newagain9964 you didn’t read my comment. Try again.
@@nicksurfs1 fake. I did read your comment.
@@newagain9964 u deleted urs so... mby u didnt read it
I just find it hilarious that if a politician bribes me to do something, most likely from public money, I am supposed to return a significant chunk to the government.
Bribes are usually the other way around. People pay government officials to look the other way.
@@alan5506 Usually, but not always
That's because a politician isn't the government. They're effectively a self-employed contractor on a 2/4/6 year contract
That would be great if politicians would bribe me to do something, how do I sign up?
@@scottabc72 Well, that job is usually called an "accomplice" or, a "scapegoat"
the real question is - can it serve as evidence for criminal activities prosecution (federal/state)? can it be summoned/revealed as part of discovery?
If not, it might actually be a good idea ;)
time to test this theory at the supreme court
it's probably enough to start an investigation and request for documents... so... well no but actually yes
5th amendment. This is a very bad, perhaps even evil idea.
Dislaimer: not a lawyer. The courts have gone back and forth on this. From what I understand, the current precedent is that is is not admissible. They basically said "You can't be compelled to testify against yourself. You're being compelled here, so it's not testimony"
That being said law enforcement has a bad habit of doing parallel construction, using illegal knowledge to find legal evidence.
Probably somewhere it happens...
To answer the obvious question...in order to demand that you report income and pay taxes on it while complying with the 5th Amendment prohibition on forcing a citizen to incriminate himself, the IRS will accept something known as a "5th Amendment tax return" which, as I understand it, essentially says "I made $X in income from a source which I am not willing to specify, here is the tax bill I owe on that income." I am not an attorney but my cousin, who is, used to do this in the 1980s for his drug cartel clients.
OHHHH that makes sense. thanks man
allegedly
"Allegedly"
*better call saul theme intensified*
I remember learning about this in school (Accounting). One of the implications that my teacher pointed out was that once the IRS was done siezing someone's assets for all of the tax evasion that's likely to accompany their criminal activities they would have far less money to defend themselves from criminal charges.
The arguments for this policy just make it sound more and more evil
That sounds bad
@@matthewjones9638 Crime is often evil
@@The360MlgNoscoper is it? We have the largest prison population in the world, do we have the most evil populace?
@@matthewjones9638 I literally just said that crime is bad
I had an economics teacher tell me the IRS is the only organization in the world that can pull money out of a naked man's "pockets."
😄 good joke
Even here in Germany my professor for taxes (and other subjects) told us that criminals convicted for their illegal business(-es) then (usually) get a follow-up from the Finanzamt (roughly the German IRS equivalent) to get its share of the criminals' gains through taxation.
For example drug traffickers, tax evaders, fraudsters, etc. pp.
Taxation isn't stopped just because the origin of the gains was illegal.
So basically, you get trapped in debt for not paying for what you did
@@irok1 Obligatory IANAL.
You generate income then don't pay taxes. That's tax evasion whether the income was generated legally or illegally. If you are then sentenced because of tax evasion AFAIK you have to pay the tax evaded plus any eventual penalty of the sentence.
IF you can't (or won't) pay that I'm pretty sure most of these sentences can instead be settled through "Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe", i.e. x Days in prison, where x is determined by the amount to be paid divided by the Day-fine system (scaled according to personal income).
Erklär halt noch komplizierter
"defending themselves in court is technically something they had to do for their business" I cant man, why is that so funny
Spend enough on legal fees and you can offset your income and eliminate your income tax. Problem solved, no tax evasion
The IRS as your homepage joke is my favorite you've made in a while!
These fucking bots
why would it be a joke?
Since they didn't make it clear enough- you can't deduct most business expenses if you sell cannabis, even if it's legal in your state. You can deduct expenses from most other illegal businesses, as mentioned, but there's a specific rule that you CAN'T deduct expenses from trafficking in controlled substances. Meaning you technically are supposed to pay tax on your entire gross income, which might mean paying more than your entire profit in tax if you have a lot of expenses you aren't allowed to write off.
That is dreadful to think about.
Human: *does a crime*
Government: Prepare for trouble!
IRS: And make it double!
Ok this is actually pretty funny
@@speedrunner1763 It do be what you just said
Income tax was originally, only temporary, to pay for the Great War (I.e., WWI). Also don’t forget, Al Capone wasn’t caught for his many crimes, but for tax evasion.
Nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program
"Noting is so permanent as a temporary government measure"
- Milton Friedman (economist)
@@loc4725 At least in this case it's a good one. I'm looking at you, the draft.
@@henryfleischer404 "Never let a good crisis go to waste"
- Winston Churchill
The problem is it's always 'for a good reason' but never 'until that reason goes away'. In times of crisis and national distress you can always expect politicians to act quickly. Quicky to increase their powers and take even more money.
It is still mostly used for war.
The IRS is the biggest mob boss of them all. “That job you did, where’s MY cut.”
Having roads is pretty based though. Hell maybe even universal Healthcare instead of murdering random brown people across the pond could be a good use.
I mean... how many mobs provide you with roads, emergency services, law enforcement and the like? Taxes suck, but they're not the mob.
@@WoWhistorian many mobs have done that actually. It’s a lot easier for a massive crime organization to transport illegal goods when there are roads, and infrastructure to prevent bandits from attacking their transport trucks.
@@emeraldfinder5 A big enough mob is just a government. I'm not saying that's a bad thing either. In order for commerce and business to flow you need a state to build and maintain infrastructure and keep people safe.
@@WoWhistorian the government wastes billions of dollars every year on useless things. Your dollars and my dollars.
POV: You’ve planned a bank heist for years, assembled a team of the best criminals in the world, and stayed under the radar after the heist.
The IRS: Hello there.
This makes sense, otherwise profit maximizing firms would prioritize illegal income over legal income so long as the legal fees don't outweigh profit.
Pretty horrific that needs to be done... 🤷♂️
Oh no. Less money for bombing children in Yemen. The horror.
"profit maximizing firms" that's just called a company
I mean that's already kind of how it goes when it comes to safety violations or environmental regulations.
When the only penalty is a fine of a maximum size and you can make more profit than that fine companies will happily chug along breaking the law to maximize income.
This assumes that the laws are correct and should be abided....
@@comicbookguy2326 That's assuming no companies don't have ulterior motives, which they often do. Good or bad, not all are looking to solely maximize profits. Like not exploiting legalized slavery or pulling out of profitable countries that commit war crimes.
But what happens if you're a criminal doing crimes and you pay your taxes? Is that used as evidence in court for the crimes or used to justify warrants, or are the IRS cool with getting evidence of crimes and keeping it confidential?
Nope, generally evidence of you filing for illegal income can’t be used against you in court as it is considered a compelled testimony. You can google this more if you want info.
@@thebaker8637 Thanks; I'd been trying to google it but was either getting things like this that say you *can* pay illegal income tax but nothing that says what happens if you did. "Compelled testimony", that was the magic phrase, appreciations.
@@thebaker8637 Sure it can't be used as evidence but it could still be used to justify a warrant, even if they make up some other reason that they had reasonable suspicion to search your home
@@OllieWales well, it’s complicated. my understanding is that first of all the IRS will not release your tax returns to the government without probable cause, and the IRS can’t share the information on their own with law enforcement. you are also under no obligation to actually write in what exactly the “other income” is, in fact simply pleading the 5th on the particular field asking for the origins of the money is the way to prevent the government from using the return to prosecute you. the IRS can even audit you and you are then technically required to disclose to them that you e.g. run a crime syndicate, give them paperwork detailing how you obtained the money, and the IRS can then use this information to actually verify your numbers, just like with any other business really. so there’s really no “good” way to do it, but theres some safeguards so the IRS and the government can’t collude to use the mandatory reporting to nail you for a crime.
@@thebaker8637 " and the IRS can’t share the information on their own with law enforcement. you are also under no obligation to actually write in what exactly the “other income” "
Ok, that's what I thought might be the case. So you don't give specifics that could be used against you. Even if there is some behind the scenes collusion (such as an audit that came from the FBI requesting it of the IRS), it couldn't be used against you in the court of law. I would also assume that the FBI would already know what the individual is doing but just doesn't have actual hard evidence that would be enough to convict in the courts.
Messing with the IRS has put the worst people down, not even the joker wants to fight them, Al Capone was notorious and he was charged with Tax Evasion, that made him end up in jail, not for his crimes like murder or alcohol bootlegging
Thank God Tax Evasion isn’t illegal because they might give me a death sentence if it was the case
Legal Mafia or the Federal Government will do as much as threaten your family aswell
@@KGBSpyGeorgeCostanza shut up.
@@ANDREALEONE95 what are you, my mother? Piss off, not like it's BS what I said
If it was actually illegal, they wouldn't be able to prosecute nearly as many as they do now.
If it was illegal, they would have to prove, in a court of your peers, that you actually made the money.
As the rules are now, if they say you owe, you owe unless you can prove, to a court made up of IRS employees, that you don't.....
@@lordgarion514 you're conflating criminal and illegal, while there is overlap they don't mean the same thing.
The question I've always had though is, can reporting illegal income lead to an investigation being opened into you? My assumption has always been yes but I've never seen it addressed.
AFAIK tax returns are confidential for this reason. And I’d surmise that the fifth amendment means as long as you’re sufficiently vague about the income they can’t demand that you say more.
Correct. The IRS just wants the money and doesn’t ask where you got it. It’s a matter of not only the fifth amendment but the fourth as well (unreasonable search and seizure). They have to already reasonably suspect you of crime before they’re allowed to start digging into you and this very much includes your tax records.
The Supreme Court has held that the tax return can be used against the taxpayer at trial. SCOTUS has also held that taxpayers can take the Fifth on their tax return, when there's a real risk of prosecution, but you *can't* just refuse to file a return altogether. You have to assert the privilege for each individual question where it applies, and you (or your lawyers) have to be prepared to defend the assertion of privilege in court.
Despite what some people believe, the answer is yes. Otherwise, the notion of money laundering is ridiculous. Criminal enterprises would not go through the hassle of making their profits seem legitimate (and paying taxes on those legitimate profits) if they could just fill out an extra line on an ordinary tax return.
@@MrZer093 In other words, the IRS wants hush money.
“I’ll tax the street.
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get to cold I’ll tax the heat.
If you take a walk I’ll tax your feet.
‘Cause I’m the TAX-MAN.” 💸
Some states sell drug sales tax stamps. Not because they expect drug dealers to buy them but to be able to prosecute dealers for sales tax evasion. They’re quite the collector’s item as well
Do you know the tax stamps Benefit?
Makes sense to me. I once applied for a government job (different country) and one part of the application process was to give them a list of all the foreign intelligence services I have been associated with in the past. I preferred to leave that one blank.
A friend of mine who works for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office was asked during his security check if he'd ever attempted to overthrow a democratically elected government!
@@richardcrooks6713 Was that a requirement to get selected? ^^
Some of these questions are wild. If I remember correctly, that list I mentioned earlier also asked about membership in terrorist organizations. They also wanted to know if I had any sort of contacts to citizens of a list of like 30 countries. You know, political rivals like China and Russia, active war zones like Syria and Afghanistan and also Serbia for some reason (not the rest of former Yugoslavia though). Like, do I honestly have to tell them if I have a friend with any of these nationalities? I even told them that I did have some contacts like that, but they didn't come back to ask me about it.
@@3st3st77 I presume (or hope!) that would be an exclusionary criteria, but, then again, maybe it was experience they were specifically looking for!
For US ESTA applications one of the questions used to ask if you're planning to carry out a crime against humanity while in the US. There was once someone who answered yes by mistake when applying for an ESTA for his baby, which then resulted in them having to go to the embassy in person to apply for a visa and explain the error! LOL
For normal people and non business reporting cases, penalties for mislabeling your income are usually calculated based on a % of the money you owe multiplied by the correct tax rate of that type of income. Wich means if you report income in the wrong section of your tax return BUT you pay the right amount of taxes, you don´t ower anything else to the IRS even if you get audited later on. The conclusion of this is you are allowed to mislabel income type in most cases because for day to day normal non business tax returns, your requirement is to pay the right amount of taxes owed. Business in the other hand have information requirements with penalties based on information wrongfully provided. But as an individual the IRS only wants their cut of your income, they do not care about the ilegal means you used to collect them. I remember a real life case study were we had businesses that provided hitman services, and the judge rule on their favor because they claim bullets used to commit their crimes could be counted as expenses, They were consumed on the regular actions of the day to day performance of the business activity and had all the characteristics required by law. US tax law is a beautiful animal,
Can we all just take a moment and thank this youtuber for packing this much content into 4.5 minutes? Most other channels would have wasted 20+ minutes of our lives. You just got a new subscriber! Cheers
When I took the tax section of the CPA exam, there was a section that relates how to file taxes for illegal activities. Quite entertaining.
Good on you HAI, you found the ONE honest carbon offset seller to sponsor this video so people can make as much carbon as they want, guilt free. But what about the fact that I purposefully leave a HUGE carbon footprint, laughing manically as I do, and just don’t care because I’m gonna be dead one day and then it’s everyone else’s problem?
When I saw the title I assumed they tax illegal income for pretty much the same reason that it's illegal to wear a bulletproof vest during a violent crime. So that when they catch you making the illegal income, they can also punish you for not paying taxes on it.
the IRS does not care where the money came from, they just want their piece.
And no piece means they will fold and snitch on you whether you're a Colombian Drug Lord or a local mobster with influence in politics
They do care though. If you don't report it, they can get you for that. If you do report it, they can get you for that too.
@@alex2143 It's actually been established that you can use the fifth amendment protection to not disclose the source of criminal income.
They can definitely still tell you're doing something questionable but unless you're reporting the wear and tear on your drug smuggling plane or something they won't know the details.
@@thecollinanderson Oh wow, didn't know that. Couldn't they audit you though? I mean, "show us that this number is accurate" sounds like something that the IRS might reasonably say.
@@alex2143 Not saying it's a perfect system, they will have questions and naturally the IRS wants to get answers. But there is some precedence.
LETS GOOOO, Minnesota shout out, I love my state so goddamn much its unreal. It certainly is quite cloudy January through March, though currently the clouds are gone on account of the below zero weather.
The irony of the IRS taxing bribes after taking them themselves.
What's more embarrassing; being the taxman that declares their bribes, or being the taxman that doesn't?
Or IRS taking a slice of earning from prostitution... You know, a pimp?
What are you talking about?
Taking a Bribe as a IRS worker is still as illegal as ever. If anything, more illegal. Because now you are also defrauding or aiding the defrauding of the Federal Government.
I haven't reported my income since 2019, I've been self-employed & taxes are too hard to do & my income is way to complex. I'll happily pay if they audit me & I can have them do it for free but I ain't hiring an accountant. If they wanna take my money then they can do the work to find out how much I owe.
I don't even track my income properly, I don't give out invoices or receipts, like taxes are WAYYY too hard & too much work to deal with, its just not worth my time. I don't own a home & don't make enough to ever afford one, I have an apartment but my address is a postal box, so they don't even know where I live.
Like in this market, with this level of unaffordablity there is honestly no point to any of it. I am simply not motivated enough to do my taxes, I'm hardly motivated enough to work at all, if I had to actually track my income, keep invoices & payment records, fill out forms, file it, then pay. OH MY GOD NO WAY, that sounds like hell, like they can ever expect me to do that.
Being an adult sucks, like its awesome, but I never agreed to any of this tax garbage!
I don't think you should be admitting to Tax Evasion in RUclips comments lol
It was pretty much exactly what I thought but you still made the story really interesting!
Hopefully exactly half as interesting as you thought.
Interesting. If you got something stolen FROM you, would you be able to deduct that off your income taxes then?
That makes sense!
IRS: Tell us how much money you made even though we already know. If you make a mistake we will fine you.
This whole video is about taxable income which wasn't already reported to the IRS.
I am actually a little shocked that you said wren works because it seemed like every offset company was losing to me, but I checked them out and they do seem pretty well organized especially compared to other carbon offset companies. Thanks for bringing This to my attention, I really appreciate it. Also I have been a subscriber for many years now and to Wendover Productions and every time you guys do great. So thanks again and keep up the good videos
Been supporting wren for a while. After the video on climate offsetting having issues, it's nice to hear that they're not one of the bad ones.
Just like arson for insurance money cases. You filed a fraudulent insurance claim - insurance fraud. You used communication means to do it or otherwise communicate with the insurer - wire and mail frauds. You deposit that money in the bank - bank fraud. (And I guess now if you don’t report it to the IRS…)
Remember, cash is still the best way to pay for less than legal activities. Bank and other financial services won't see it after all.
You would think that, but with some experience running a perfectly legal business that deals in reasonably large sums of cash regularly, I can tell you, Dealing with cash in quantity is surprisingly difficult when you need to get it in to banks and such to be able to pay your bills. These days banks are even charging money if you deposit too much cash. It's super annoying and a hassle. The paperwork sucks too when you have ten grand or more to deposit.
@@johngaltline9933 Buy prepaid cards and use those to pay your bills...
@@jameskarrie298 Prepaid cards tend to have limits far too low to deal with business expenses, and suppliers often won't accept them. Besides, I like the points on my amex. The prepaid cards do likely work well enough for just generic tax evasion purposes, but are a hassle and don't handle the needs of actually trying to run a reputable business. I'm not going to go to a supplier and give then 12 different card numbers for one invoice.
Most of the issue for us is that the large national banks charge you money to deposit cash, and we have contractors in 17 states that need to deposit cash so are stuck just eating that cost when we have to.
@@johngaltline9933 There are plenty of banks that don't charge you to deposit cash, why not just use those? Not paying taxes saves you a lot more money than the 1% cash back you get from your amex (higher for certain categories though)
@@jameskarrie298 see above. Need a national bank. The options east of the Mississippi are Bank of America and Chase, both of which charge a “cash processing fee” if you deposit more than $7500 in a month.
One time at the circus, the strongman would take an orange, and squeeze it until not a drop of juice would come out. Then he would ask if anyone in the audience could do better. A meek, mild man went up on stage and managed to get a whole glassful more of the juice, much to the strongman's surprise. "WTF? How did you do that"? he exclaimed. The little man replied: "I work for the IRS"!
My late Aunt was an accountant. She was telling her clients these rules for decades.
In addition, a lot of crimes end up overlapping and you can do what seems like one thing and get a ton of charges for it. What seems like just stealing something can quickly become tax fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and more.
The largest illegal income isn't mentioned, taxes paid by illegal immigrants utilizing the TIN, Taxpayers Identification Number, instead of SSNs. In MD we provide many benefits illegal immigrants can not receive at the federal reserve because many do pay taxes in the hope it will one day provide a path for legal status. All of this money is paid under the table without taxes since it is illegal but the IRS provides TINs without questions being asked since they will allow you to pay taxes if willing.
In my country we have something called "asset forfeiture", which is when the state seizes your assets that are SUSPECTED to have been bought with the proceeds of crime. This forfeiture usually happens at about the time you're charged, but before you're actually convicted of anything. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?
Oh man. The US (maybe Canada, I can't remember which is awkward cause I live here) has civil forfeiture. You don't even need to be charged or convicted of a crime, if they suspect that some assets are either used in or a result of criminal activity, they can just take it. Carrying a bunch of cash? Drug money. The police keep it. Suspect you're carrying/distributing drugs? Wow, the police department just got a new car!
Even if they can't prove you did anything wrong, it doesn't matter. Technically its your confiscated possessions that are "guilty" and it's very difficult to prove otherwise. And what happens to assets seized via civil forfeiture? Why, the police/LE agency gets to keep them! John Oliver did a segment on it, one police department even used confiscated "drug money" to buy a god damn margarita machine.
It's fucked up.
Hey, if asset forfeiture covers bloody Telegram bots I'd be down. Would at least be more effective at sweeping them up than RUclips ever will be.
That's called civil asset forfeiture here in America. Basically the police can just take your money and you have to sue the department in order to maybe get most of it back. And no, its not a guaranteed win. There's also criminal asset forfeiture which is where you are convicted of a crime, and all the proceeds from that crime are seized.
I mean there’s not really a way around that, if someone broke into a children’s hospital and stole millions of dollars you wouldn’t be like yeah just keep all that money until we formally charge you. Obviously like every single criminal would just move the money until it can’t be found. So it’d be more of a question of what circumstances and crimes should the government hold onto the assets until you’re found guilty/not guilty.
But yes that exists in the US
I wish to be clear. I 100% watched the whole ad for wren. Because Wren is awesome!
That homepage joke right at the beginning was actually funny.
I love how there’s a Walter White stock footage at 3:51
Mafia: let's make hard-working citizens pay "protection" money to us.
IRS: let's make mafia pay "taxes" to us.
I've been waiting for a video like this
Wow, dark opening, loved it!
I hope they won't tax my harvested kidneys
If it makes you money, they deserve some of it
@@summit-development no they do not, never give shit to the America Government, a legal mafia, that's what it is
@@summit-development deserve?
@Marcus
Yes, deserve. The IRS collects money so that the government can pay for the infrastructure needed for you to live and prosper, however well they might do that.
If you harvest kidneys you need certain infratructures the state pays for, lime roads to transport the kidney, the postal service to ship it, electricity networks to power the light you need in your illegal operating room, etc. These things need to be payed for, that is the governments job. And the government is (indirectly) financed by the IRS.
Taxing is also needed to keep the economy moving, as no taxes would indirectly lead to less money being lended out. You might need a loan to pay for the cooling equipment which can be expensive. If the IRS wouldn't purge money, banks could lend less money to you to kick-start your kidney harvesting operation.
@@MarcusH... did i stutter
In Iowa, if you're busted for drug dealing, you're also charged for tax evasion. Gotta pay that sales tax on the nose snow
Then how do I report my income-tax on money I made by evading other taxes (like salestax)?
IRS Tax Returns are immune from criminal prosecutions. This was required to get around the right against illegal search and seizure. Nothing declared on your tax returns can be used against you in criminal court, as long as you are truthful.
Jesse! JESSE! The IRS is after me, I forgot to pay the meth tax!
Why did they take the lawful part out before coming up with the double crime arrest schemes.
Isn’t this a large factor in money laundering’s existence. Finding some legal business to funnel the money through, so you have some legal excuse for how you acquired the money. But specifically pay taxes on it so the IRS stays off your back. I believe I’ve heard and it’d make a lot of sense for the IRS being the one of first people to notice “hey this guy has a shitload of money and he’s not paying any taxes or declaring any income” arrest him
yea saul goodman talks about it
Huh, this is actually useful for a fanfic I'm considering writing. Thanks.
For most people taxes are just a guess the number game where the IRS knows what you should pay and could just tell you but instead want you to do a dance and if you come up with the wrong number you go to jail
Because of deductions. They dont know how much you actually have to pay since they dont know how many deductibles you have
4:15 wait, so Half as Interesting is a writer for Wendover? Wow what a small world we live in huh.
I know right! Both narrators are also called Sam! What are the odds, right?
Except this was written by the one of the guys who competes with Sam on that jet game with the lag in gameplay.
@@vibingcultist2832 Moreover, if you add a silent E to that name it becomes "same". Coincidence? I think not!
@@NickCBax what? The description of “The Carbon Offset Problem” says otherwise?
@@hiiamelecktro4985 Look at the description of this video. It is narrated by Sam, but it isn't written by him..
Minnesotas actually pretty sunny in January. Too cold for clouds.
To a kinda similar reason they might ask you if you are a terrorist when entering the country. A country can't you put into jail that easily, when you are a criminal in a different country, except you are the USA and throw people into jail outside your country called Guantanamo Bay, without any trial. In general you can convict someone of crimes based in the country done. It's complicated but to say it simple, it's not that easy.
Most countries don't want terrorists and its bad when suddenly you realized that you have a terrorist in you country, that entered legally and you can't just throw out. There comes this simple question. When you say yes, they just can deny you entry, so you can't enter legally. When you say no and lied, they can revoke everything and get rid of you and even put you in jail, because you lied on a piece of paper, that told you, lying there, might get you jailed.
I think with the crimes and taxes it's similar. You either tell the truth and pay your taxes but you just told the government about your crimes and you go to jail. When you lie and don't pay taxes, you go to jail because of tax fraud. Here in Germany it's easier to sit out a crime and don't get convicted, because too much time passed, than waiting that you can't get convicted for tax fraud.
But in Germany you can even go to jail, because you didn't paid your public broadcast fees. Well technically you don't go to jail for that. When you don't pay, they go to court and make you pay. At some point someone comes to you and you must give some information about income and stuff and sign a paper, confirming this information. When you don't sign, you go to jail. The whole fee thing is a highly debated topic. Some call it a tax to pay the government TV. First thing is that legally it can't be a tax and legally the government can't make TV that easily. It's thanks to a failed artist from Austria with a funny mustache, that run the government from 1933 to 1945. This fee is something you can't opt out, except you are homeless, because every home needs to pay it. Not everyone must pay but when you make money and don't have a handicap, you must pay. It's like taxes, where you also can't opt out that easily.
With government TV it's said because a lot of people who work there in the top positions are part of the major parties. If they influence the program towards the position of their party, is something that would be illegal but hard to proof. The stuff that the government can broadcast is highly regulated.
I think a human heart would be considered a capital expense, therefore requiring one to consider depreciation. By doing that, they’ll need to decide how long they’ll live then divvy it up by that.
If every man, woman and child just said "no" to taxes there's precious little the government could do about it.
Yes, pretty much nothing in society would function properly in the miraculous event that _everyone_ suddenly and unanimously decided not to participate in it.
@@VitalVampyr You don't need taxes to run society, the free market does that better than any government ever did.
@@CacowninjaThat only really works with regulation otherwise companies would be far too exploitative
@@circuit10How does no taxes lead to exploitation?
@@Cacowninja Let’s take an example of the police. In your world how would that work without taxes? If there’s no government, there are no laws by default. Would everyone hire a private police force company to protect them? Does that mean if you lose your job then anyone can do whatever they want to you with no consequences? Who makes sure this private police force actually do their job instead of just taking your money and doing nothing, since they’re just trying to make profit? What stops them from doing things that are good for you, as you’re the customer, but bad for everyone else? For example they could refuse to give people who aren’t paying them a fair trial and just put them straight in prison if you think they did something wrong. Do you see all the problems with this?
And eventually, if someone becomes powerful enough, they would just demand taxes anyway and effectively form their own government, except not democratically elected. So your idea would just get us back to where we started but worse
I knew this already. It’s similar to with travel customs checks. If you pick the “nothing to declare” queue, or whatever it’s called, but you are in fact carrying something interesting, then by making that choice you’re making yourself more legally bustable.
Great video.
New Zealand has a similar system, but it has protections: nothing I declare as illegal income can ever be passed onto the Police or used as evidence against me for any non-tax related crimes.
It's there for a reason, don't end up like Al Capone guys
If the government always takes a cut of a known crime are they complicit in the act?..
If a person knowingly received stolen goods or proceeds of crime then they would face legal action, so why is the government above the law in this regards?.
TBF, if a legal business, say a mining company, broke the law in some way by accident, they would still need to pay a lawyer. So when does lawyer stop being a business expense?
I've always wondered how an audit goes down in this case.
Now if only they would go after hospitals and insurance companies for being actual scammers..
What makes you think they haven't
@ ᴛᴇxᴛ_ᴍᴇ_ᴏɴ_ᴛᴇʟᴇɢʀᴀᴍ_@Half_As_Interesting BEGONE, BOT!
@@shadowshots9393 oh I don't know, definitely not the fact they're still doing it or anyting
Summary by gpt3.5-turbo:
The video discusses how the IRS has rules regarding the payment of taxes on illegal incomes, such as stolen property, drug dealing, and bribes. This is a result of a Supreme Court ruling in the 1920s that established the government's authority to tax any business transactions, including illegal ones. While paying taxes on illegal activity is not required, it can have benefits and may even be necessary for legitimate businesses, such as medical cannabis dispensaries. The video also includes an advertisement for a company called Wren that offers effective carbon offsets.
It's also because it's easier to nail someone on tax evasion when all possible cases would be guilty of that crime.
For ex.
Barry Bankrobber robs a bank and gets 500k. IRS questions how come there's 500k in Barry's account. Without these laws, Barry could claim it's due to illicit activities (that the feds can't prove) and, so, there's plausible deniability for Barry committing tax evasion.
However, with these laws, even IF It's because of illegal activities, Barry still should have paid taxes, so he's guilty of tax evasion no matter what.
I'm the kind of person who would pay taxes on illicit gains 😂
I figured the IRS would only expect taxes to be paid on Bribes and other illegal things if youre Convicted - otherwise the go after your assets to pay taxes on things like Bribes.
omg, someone who understand "literally" vs "figuratively"
a rarity in this day and age
"enchanting patch of desert" this is more of a complement for nevada then most people are capable to come up with lol
Thanks Sam, you summoned my tax refund with this video, I checked when I saw it and there it was
Do a video on taxes of US citizens abroad and the absurd situations people find themselves in.
They only get taxed after a certain amount of money, the minimum is 6 figures.
Thanks, I never was sure if I should pay them
Wait... kitten-flattening is... illegal? I... um... have to step out for a bit.
Cryptography would make it possible to pay your taxes on your criminal bussiness anonymously, while later being able to prove that it was you who payed those taxes anonymously.
Care to elaborate?
I do not pay my taxes
Good work
boom
edit: performance anxiety. Only thing I could think of writing... sticking with it.
So what im hearing is that it all boils down to “because they can”
Wömėn would have to report all of the drinks and dinners they stole!
"They are the real deal" = they gave me a lot of money in sponsorship
There's a Curiosity Stream ad on the Curiosity Stream uploaded version.
(slams the table) INCOME IS INCOME!
Today's fact: The core temperature of the sun, earth's closest star, is around 15 million Celcius.
Thank you
@Peter Griffin that's a solid 30 million bear fights assuming each fight takes 200 calories
Another fact for today.
When talking about stars and their distance from Earth, you don't include the sun, because we are gravitationally bound to it.
Which is why, if you ask an astrophysicist with a PhD, what the closest star to Earth is, they will say Proxima Centauri.
I don't understand how people can accept the government to tax their income, to the point that countries where income is not taxed are viewed negatively, it's your money you got from your work, what right does the government have to take part of it.
The government should only tax the use of things that belong to the country, such as land, natural resources and infrastructure.
It depends on where you live though. The government has to pay for roads, healthcare (not for the US lol), courts and police somehow.
Places like Qatar (and Alaska I think?) make enough off of their oil reserves that they don’t have to tax income, and actually pay out extra money to residents each year! But if you live in an area that is a patch of dirt without oil or mines, you still want to drive places and not get murdered by roaming gangs.
The alternative to income tax would be things like toll booths on every road and paid bodyguards/local protection, so you’d still be losing your income somehow, along with your safety.
@@Nocebonobo You can easily have a functioning country without income taxes, you can tax import and export, land use, natural resource extraction, roads, railways, airports, ports, if necessary you create taxes specifically for funding public services, no need for income tax.
The reason income tax exists is to allow the government to collect information about you, which is why many countries hate tax havens.
@@visekual6248 You got it!
@@visekual6248 Yeah that's mostly what I was saying, that if you don't have income tax you have to find other places to take tax. But you're still getting taxed in the end, just disproportionately to your income
Without income tax the average person would probably be paying more in taxes because the uber-rich aren't paying proportionately to their income (i know they don't pay their full dues, but they're still mostly probably paying a considerable amount more than the average person)
As for information, the government already has deep information on everyone on everything. To me at least the financial data seems like it wouldn't be the most important, mainly used for census data (if income tax didn't exist)
This comment section is really bad
3:26 minneapolis here. this state is nowhere *_NEAR_* as grey as Seattle winters. trust me on this.
(oh, and i haven't paid taxes since 1908. take *_that_* , IRS!)
So, if I did crime that is relatively harmless and very profitable, and I paid taxes, the government might just let me continue, because it's more worth it for them to take a cut out of my ill-gotten gains?