How Much Further Will We Let This Go?

[Commodore]

Okay so according to this article, the federal government is using an anti-drug trafficking law to straight up steal money from the American people.

For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest, cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away, until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her they had seized her funds, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents did not accuse Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes. She has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report

Using a law designed to help catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many simply give up and settle the case for a portion of their money

More than two years ago, the government seized $447,000, and the brothers have been unable to retrieve it. Salzman, who has taken over legal representation of the brothers, has argued that prosecutors violated a strict timeline laid out in the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act, passed in 2000 to curb abuses.

The office of the federal attorney for the Eastern District of New York said the law’s timeline did not apply in this case. The federal attorney’s office said that parties often voluntarily negotiated to avoid going to court and that Joseph Potashnik, the Hirsches’ first lawyer, had been engaged in talks until just a few months ago. But Potashnik said he had spent that time trying, to no avail, to show that the brothers were innocent. They even paid a forensic accounting firm $25,000 to check the books.

“I don’t think they’re really interested in anything,” Potashnik said of the prosecutors. “They just want the money.”

Where is the outrage over this? This kind of government thuggery is what people should be protesting in the streets over and I feel they would be if this were taking place in any other nation but the US. The American people, however, seem perfectly content with just letting the government take more and more with little to no resistance. This law the IRS is using seems highly unconstitutional in the first place since it requires one to prove their innocence to have their own property returned to them. Not to mention this seems a lot like illegal search and seizure to me.

Link to article.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There are a vast number of people in the USA who have taken 'trust the police' as an overarching position. They write all this off as 'well they must have done something' and go their blinkered way.

Then there is another large group of people who recognize, rightly enough, that one protesting person is easily targeted for selective prosecution, and the police can and will ruin your life if you attract their attention. They may be outraged, but they aren't going to say so.

And everyone else is in jail, or headed that way.

 

[MobBoss]

The IRS isn't the police.

After the IRS fiascos of the last two years, one can only hope that its demise could be in our near future - to be replace with some type of tax code system that is both easy to grasp and fair to all citizens.

 

[Commodore]

After the IRS fiascos of the last two years, one can only hope that its demise could be in our near future - to be replace with some type of tax code system that is both easy to grasp and fair to all citizens.

This particular situation has nothing to do with a complex tax code though. What the IRS is doing here is theft, plain and simple. Even when these business owners or their lawyers present evidence of their innocence, the IRS still tries to keep the money or only offer to return a small portion of the stolen funds to its rightful owner.

To me, this is a clear instance of the federal government taking what they want and looking in the face of the American public and saying "what are you going to do about it?"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The IRS isn't the police.

After the IRS fiascos of the last two years, one can only hope that its demise could be in our near future - to be replace with some type of tax code system that is both easy to grasp and fair to all citizens.

If you think the asset forfeiture problem is confined to the IRS and your golden boys with the badges have nothing to do with it think again. I'd provide links, but since I know you've been confronted with them and ignored them in the last month already it would certainly be a waste of time.

 

[Hygro]

Stop. Caring. About. Deficits.

Start. Funding. Infrastructure.

Create. Universal. Jobs. Program.

Problems. Will. Solve. Themselves.

 

[Tee Kay]

Stop. Caring. About. Deficits.

Start. Funding. Infrastructure.

Create. Universal. Jobs. Program.

Problems. Will. Solve. Themselves.

Also, stop draining the economy with misplaced obsessive policies on law and order, like the war on drugs, or expansion of prisons, or giving municipal police military-grade hardware.

 

[metatron]

Also, stop draining the economy with misplaced obsessive policies on law and order, like the war on drugs, or expansion of prisons, or giving municipal police military-grade hardware.

No, no, in fact you should do all these things.
Invading a country or two also helps, i've heard.

Didn't Krugman "educate" you on how the glassmaker makes an income?

 

[Cheetah]

The local police needs more margarita machines!


Link to video.

 

[Zelig]

You can solve the problem for yourself immediately by fleeing the country.

Free market!

 

[Tee Kay]

You can solve the problem for yourself immediately by fleeing the country.

Free market!

You know, I'd totally be on board with libertarians if they supporting lifting all immigration controls.

 

[classical_hero]

Surely this is a violation of the 5th Amendment.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Surely, some 50 years after the invention of any amendment, either the state or a person or a corporation (or, if we'll follow some pleasant people's logic train, both), have invented also ways to infringe said amendment.

 

[Tee Kay]

Surely the only amendment that matters is the second (and occasionally the first).

 

[bhsup]

Surely, some 50 years after the invention of any amendment, either the state or a person or a corporation (or, if we'll follow some pleasant people's logic train, both), have invented also ways to infringe said amendment.

Yeah, it is called the judicial branch.

 

[jackelgull]

Surely this is a violation of the 5th Amendment.

technically it isn't, since the amendments only concern rights of people, not rights of property, but that is only because no one could have predicted that someone could have come up with such an asinine procedure to seize property.

 

[El_Machinae]

The issue might (?) be that their primary target is those who cannot legally defend themselves. This would be a ripe opportunity for a test case.

Does the ACLU have a file on this, basically waiting for sufficient aid?

 

[jackelgull]

the vast majority of civil forfeiture case fall into two categories- the poor and weak who do not have legal means to fight it, or it is against people with small sums of cash on hand for whom it would be cheaper to walk away rather than fight. Of course there are some rare cases in which millionaires get targeted.


The part in the video where the police commissioner refers to civil forfeiture as "pennies from heaven' really worries me.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Yeah, it is called the judicial branch.

If you have a big enough commission, you can do anything.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The local police needs more margarita machines!


Link to video.

Yeah that segment was great

And it just boggles by mind how it is possible that things could be treated as legal persona. Sometimes your common law system just seems like a big bag of wonders to me where no one knows what next curiosity will surface.