Anonymous Newspaper Commenters Subpoenaed In Tax Case 394
skuzzlebutt writes "In a federal tax case reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal last week, a local businessman has been paying his employees in gold coins instead of cash or ACH, and has reportedly told them that they can only be taxed on the face value of the coinage — not the much higher market value of the metal. The United States disagreed, and brought him up on 57 counts of income tax evasion, tax fraud and criminal conspiracy. The non-authenticated comments section of the original article brought a lot of supporters out of the woodwork, including a few who thought the jury should be hung (literally, procedurally, or figuratively ... pick one). In response, the prosecution has subpoenaed the names of the anonymous commenters, citing fears of jury safety. Or something. The obvious questions of privacy and protected speech aside, for the folks that support the defendant (the newspaper is fighting the subpoena), this also brings back into the spotlight the troll-empowering nature of pseudo-anonymous, non-authenticated boards. If they want to find you, they will; is anonymous commenting still worth it, or is it just too risky for the board owners?"
Re:Thought... (Score:5, Informative)
This means that if my employer pays me in nickels then I also must pay more in income tax to the feds as a nickel is worth more then five cents in pure metal value these days.
No, you can go to the bank and get nickles for 5 cents each. You can not go to the bank and get $20 gold pieces for $20 each.
If you were melting down the nickels and selling the bulk metal you would be in violation [usatoday.com] of more than tax laws.
You forgot a few things to be anonymous (Score:5, Informative)
* Don't touch the envelope or paper without wearing several layers of surgical gloves.
* Don't use a printer that leaves any identifying marks. Most modern color printers are traceable and most older typewriters are as well.
* Don't lick the stamp or envelope!
* Don't drop it in any drop-box that has a security camera anywhere nearby.
Re:Constitution (Score:5, Informative)
Re:i'll be the first to say.. (Score:5, Informative)
Clearing houses pre-date Publisher's Clearing House by decades. In fact, my guess is that this is where PCH got the name. Basically clearing houses were places where banks would exchange all of the checks they received from other banks. Accounts would be settled between banks. As a manual process, it was a royal pain in the ass. In the era of electronic funds transfers and check imagining, this process has become much more automated, reducing float times that some individuals would take advantage of.
Re:Hypocritical? (Score:5, Informative)
Quarters, unlike gold coins, are legal tender.
Blatantly, outright, not even close, missed by a mile, false. 10 seconds on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gold_Eagle [wikipedia.org]
Refers you to the US mint government webpage:
http://www.usmint.gov/downloads/mint_programs/am_eagles/AmerEagleGold.pdf [usmint.gov]
Here's a direct quote from the first page of this US MINT government issued document:
"They're also legal tender"
I'll bite on this (Score:5, Informative)
Since I previously worked in a company that's primary business was in running (and selling advertising on) web-forums, I suppose I'd be as qualified as anyone to answer this:
a) The default behaviour of the software is to record IP addresses. It's not like most companies are building their own, they're using something like vBulletin, IPB, or possibly PHPBB. I'm not even sure if this is a feature that could be disabled without a plugin/hack
b) Basic security is tied to IP. Just as does slashdot, so do other forums get their share of trolls. You actually don't see it a lot here, but penis-enlargement, pr0n, scams and spam are also fairly common. The IP address is your only semi-reliable link to a real person, in which case you can block certain IP's or netblocks that become an issue, track down users with multiple accounts. I do say semi-reliably as IPs can be routed through proxies etc, but many boards actually have RBL's for known proxies
c) Advertising, which for many boards is the chief (or only) source of revenue, often ties to IP address. Most programs collect statistics by IP, and also other fun stuff like geo-targetting, rotation (so you don't see the same ad a gazillion times in a row), etc
d) User related to locality can be fairly well-determined by IP. If you've got issues where all your users in the Eastern US connect slowly/poorly, or possibly where you have many users in Western Europe but they have a shit connection, then it may lead you to consider adding services (local server, cache, or whatever) in those areas.
e) The last thing I can think of off the top of my head is statistics, which are also very important to many web-boards to see where they're growing and where they need improvement.
And yes, these work fairly well for 95% of the John-Doe users. Most people, even those who consider themselves clever, don't make much use of proxies or other such things to post secretly on boards, which allows the wheat to be filtered from the chaff fairly well based on IP. Until a better method comes along, it's probably the best way.
p.s. Don't use my own board as an example of something spam-proof. It's using different software than I used at work, gets very little time dedicated to it, and the spam-collection is actually something of interest while I try to come up with fun methods of dealing with the spammers.
Re:Threats (Score:5, Informative)
They do not have point of asking for ALL information of EVERY ONE that posted. This includes Credit Card Numbers, ISP, and Addresses for every poster.
If they tailored request to those few (I read three) that actually crossed the line into threatening, then it is what you say.
I guess the prosecutors eventually got that exact message, because they have now narrowed the subpoena to just two posters [lvrj.com].
I don't really disagree with your point, but in this case it's just William Cohan once again being a complete tool. He'd go after your grandmother for assault on a public official if she complained about a tax bill. He's been going after Robert Kahre for years, this isn't the first time. This latest round reeks of vindictiveness over having his case completely thrown out the last time he tried it.
Here's [lvrj.com] a little more background if you're interested.
Re:Face Value vs Ore Value (Score:3, Informative)
What this guy did was unbelievably stupid and uninformed and he deserves to...oh wait...not anonymous...uhm...well he deserves to be punished by the law.
The scenario you are describing is flawed in that noone tried to pay you based on that special value of the coin. However, if you sold that coin, you can bet any taxes due would be based on the value of the sale not the face value of the penny. However, if someone tried to pay you for a $100 job using a penny valued at $100 and said you only had to pay taxes on the $0.01 they would be stupid, and you would be stupid for believing them. If it became a regular thing you could easily wind up on the hook in a nasty tax evasion scenario...just like this guy did.
Re:i'll be the first to say.. (Score:2, Informative)
There, fixt that for you.
Re:Unlawful governance (Score:2, Informative)
IF the government doesn't like it they need to change the law and outlaw the gold coins that they mint as legal tender.
Actually, they needed to not change the law. For a while, this would, indeed, be illegal, as private ownership of gold bullion was illegal. They not only changed the law, they started making gold coins again.
And, indeed. I don't care what the IRS says. If the government prints $10 on a coin, and issues it, WRT the government it's worth ten dollars, period. If the government doesn't like that, it can stop issuing such coins.
Incidentally, before anyone tries to lump me it with 'the government should not issue paper money' people, I think those people are crazy. However, there's a valid point that if the government is issuing something as money, it has to treat it as money.
Incidentally, this guy probably committed a bunch of crimes. Not only is he in violation of min wage laws, but I bet his bookkeeping would be interesting, too. It's either lying and showing people were paid in full, or it's showing min wage violations. And it's showing some purchase by the company of expensive gold coins that just vanished.
Re:Threats (Score:2, Informative)
RTFA.
The feds are going after everyone who posted anonymously, not just anonymous posters who made comments that might be threatening (or might only be juvenile hyperbole).
A much more targeted subpoena could have been easily drafted, demanding information on only on a list of the anonymous posts that could be construed in some way as threatening. That was not done; the subpoena is not properly focused. The only obvious reason for constructing the subpoena this way is to use it as a threat to silent public discussions that the prosecution does not like.
In addition, those that did actually RTFA know that the subpoena is demanding data that is technically absurd and would require the newspaper to do the investigative work of law enforcement: in addition to names and IP addresses of all the anonymous posters, the subpoena calls for their street address, age, and gender.
The subpoena was initiated at least in part by the prosecutor in the tax evasion case, and on its face it looks like an attempt by that prosecutor to use the Grand Jury system to manipulate public expressions that could affect his political aspirations. That is definitely in violation of professional ethics, and almost certainly in violation of the prosecutor's legally binding limitations as an officer of the Court.
I'm glad to see the ACLU is proactively involving itself in this. And I would hope the Federal Justice Department is taking a look at whether its employee is mishandling his responsibilities. This looks like a Damm mess.
Tenth Amendment (Score:2, Informative)
nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Just thought the Federal Government should be reminded.
Re:Constitution (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's stating that states may not MAKE anything but gold and silver coin a tender.
That means they can't design their own legal tender. It doesn't mean that they can't accept legal tender made by the federal government.
Re:Face Value vs Ore Value (Score:3, Informative)
No, they aren't. States are expressly forbidden from making anything else legal tender for debts, but Congress is expressly granted the exclusive power to create money, and to regulate the value of all forms of money.
Nothing anywhere in the Constitution either requires the government to supply gold or silver coins as money, or to accept it as tender. Arguably, states are permitted to make gold and silver coin legal tender (expressly, Art. I, S. 10 forbids them to make anything else legal tender, and the express exception of gold and silver coin from that prohibition at least strongly implies that they are permitted to make those legal tender), but even if one or more states choose to exercise that right, nothing in the Constitution would bind the federal government to that state action.
You are contradicting yourself. $1 is not 1% of $1000. But, anyhow, Congress authority in Art. I, Sec. 8 to dictate the legal value of money is express; that any non-vacuous exercise of such power necessarily will result in differences between the relative legal values of some forms of money and their relative commodity values is fairly obvious.