IRS Identifies 'Dozens' of New Crypto, Cybercriminals (bloomberg.com) 57
The IRS's criminal division identified "dozens" of potential cryptocurrency tax evaders or cybercriminals after a meeting this week with tax authorities from four other countries. Bloomberg reports: Officials from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and the Netherlands -- known as the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement -- shared data, tools and tax enforcement strategies to find new leads in a quest to mitigate cross-border money-laundering, tax evasion and cybercrime. The IRS's cybercrime unit has developed expertise in "who is moving the money and where it's going," Ryan Korner, a senior special agent in the IRS's Criminal Investigations office in Los Angeles, said in a call with reporters Friday. "We have tools in place that we didn't have six months or a year ago."
The effort is part of the Internal Revenue Service's renewed focus on fighting tax evasion tied to cryptocurrency as digital currency has become more popular and gained in value. The agency has struggled in recent years to enforce tax laws and keep up with criminals as technology has advanced. "Tax fraud is not a new crime, but the sophistication with which criminals commit tax fraud has significantly increased through cyber-related activities in recent years," the joint chiefs said in a statement. "Data breaches, intrusions, takeovers and compromises are the new tools that criminals use to commit tax crimes." The IRS is preparing for a new wave of cryptocurrency audits. The agency sent letters to more than 10,000 people earlier this year, warning that they might be subject to penalties for skirting taxes on their virtual investments. The IRS and its partners are using data from previous enforcement activities to find new criminals, Korner said. Using the data from the five countries gives them a broader view of how accounts, money and people are connected.
The effort is part of the Internal Revenue Service's renewed focus on fighting tax evasion tied to cryptocurrency as digital currency has become more popular and gained in value. The agency has struggled in recent years to enforce tax laws and keep up with criminals as technology has advanced. "Tax fraud is not a new crime, but the sophistication with which criminals commit tax fraud has significantly increased through cyber-related activities in recent years," the joint chiefs said in a statement. "Data breaches, intrusions, takeovers and compromises are the new tools that criminals use to commit tax crimes." The IRS is preparing for a new wave of cryptocurrency audits. The agency sent letters to more than 10,000 people earlier this year, warning that they might be subject to penalties for skirting taxes on their virtual investments. The IRS and its partners are using data from previous enforcement activities to find new criminals, Korner said. Using the data from the five countries gives them a broader view of how accounts, money and people are connected.
When government tax officials (Score:1)
finds some bitmex' leaked emails of US customers.
Guh.
All your cryptocurrency fun (Score:1)
Now the tax questions start.
OAKSTAR and MONKEYROCKET went to work early in the cryptocurrency years.
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In the end it is an unbacked marketing scam, created it seems to facilitate criminal transactions. Why bother chasing the tax, when it simply can be made illegal by legislation, done and finished. Though not completely, there will be those who continue to use it and when caught, there real world capital assets will be subject to seizure based upon the criminal worth of the crypto currency. At the end of the day the tax haven locations are the real problem and in much the same way as making crypto illegal, s
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Um, you can't ban the internet. Why put your opinion here in a public forum wasting space for all to see if you have no idea what you're talking about.
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Streisand Effect (Score:3)
How many Bloomberg readers are saying, "oh, rly?" to these articles? Meanwhile, Bitcoin is getting improved multi-party Schnorr signatures in a few days, for better privacy, and is actually bringing useful technology to commerce:
https://youtu.be/u9OIz0P_Myk [youtu.be]
Probably few of those Bloomberg readers are rooting for the IRS, ever.
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The guy probably meant this https://cashshuffle.com/ [cashshuffle.com] and the likes of. Automatic shuffling of accounts, so while transactions are public - you can't easily attach person to wallet, until you identify all the people in the transaction chain. And then there's Monero.
However, you can only do anonymous fiat exchange Over-the-counter, which is very difficult without trust. And so cryptocurrency is useless.
Guh.
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is actually bringing useful technology to commerce
Tell me why commerce needs crypto? I can wave my contactless card, Google or Apple Pay device at a payment terminal and the transaction is completed instantly. I can also have disputed or fraudulent transactions reversed, something that no cryptocurrency offers.
Crypto will only ever have a usage case for scammers, traffickers and terrorists. For everything else, it's neither wanted nor needed.
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For your sake, I hope you are joking because if you aren't you have no clue about financial transaction processing. Crypto is used for PIN creation/validation. It is used for CVV creation/validation. It is used for ARQC/ARPC in the EMV world.
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Unfortunately, outside technical fora the word "crypto" nowadays usually means "blockchain" rather than "cryptography". And /. is not exactly a technical forum any more.
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Third party banks and other financial institutions have the ability to censor who you pay money to. Just because they haven't flexed yet at a ridiculous level doesn't mean that they won't or can't. Do you remember Wikileaks? Banks stopped processing payments to them because the government instructed them to. That example is just a tiny taste of what's to come.
Don't you want complete financial sovereignty or do you need a babysitter telling you what you can or cannot do with your own money?
Noam Chomsky Got It Right (Score:5, Insightful)
In his documentary 'Requiem For The American Dream' he says that paying taxes should really be something people look forward to and enjoy doing - in seeing their earning going towards good and just causes for society. Instead it's something people loath and avoid as much as possible, to the point of criminality, because they see their taxes being spent so badly.
Re: Noam Chomsky Got It Right (Score:3, Insightful)
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(lets pretend cutting taxes that low would even give you any government left after paying interest on the debt)
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I look at the government as an alcoholic in charge of a liquor store. No matter how much money they take in it isn't enough. Take vaping for example. A new market has opened up with lots of money moving. Is the sales tax enough? Nope, a special vaping tax is needed. You know because. I'll be happy paying taxes when I see actual improvements.
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Right and like the alcoholic the response is always "look just let me have one more drink and tomorrow everything will be fine." Its like Sanders latest proposal. The amount of additional revenue it will generate is far less than what is a currently spent on a large number of existing programs that the public would almost certainly declare to be vastly less important and less urgent than ending homelessness. Not Yet Sanders claims the revenue generated from his wealth tax would allow us to end homelessnes
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Warren has a wealth tax proposal as well. Last I heard, wealth taxes were unconstitutional.
On the other side of the coin, the Republicans paid off their wealthy supporters handsomely in the last tax giveaway. Now the yearly budget deficit will be $1 Trillion starting next year. They promised on the Bible, G-d, Motherhood, etc. that the tax giveaway would pay for itself.
Also next year, if memory serves correct, the interest on the debt will beat the Defense Budget. That's some good ol' fashion Republican val
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Oh good, I can stop paying taxes on my assets, ie, the biggest one, is my house. Take that local municipalities, no more property taxes for you....
The billionaires of the world forget that we, the little people, pay taxes on our wealth all the time.
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You will notice that a lot of European countries that have a ridiculous level of taxes sometimes also have very few tax cheats, simply because they can see that their tax money is spent sensibly. If you ever drove in, say, Norway compared to, say, California, you can easily see the difference in road maintenance, despite Norway dealing with a HELL lot more damage on their roads due to temperature and climate alone. The difference in social security is also staggering, especially in the light of the US spend
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California's road network is about 400,000 miles. Norway's is about 60,000 miles. You can't compare the US to any European country.
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Because the real world doesn't work like SimCity. Not everything scales linearly. Part of the problem in the US is that we have too much road infrastructure, because we built the country around cars. That was a big mistake, but not much we can do about it now.
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Ha ha, "not everything scales linearly." I.e. I'm implying, but won't actually *say* that for some reason road maintenance doesn't scale linearly with amount of road, and paying for it doesn't scale linearly with population.
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Well, no. As you add more roads you gain economies of scale, so rather than a linear overhead you actually make marginal gains.
So by your logic California should need to spend less per capita to maintain its road network, as the per-mile cost will be lower.
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No, to paraphrase Stalin, quantity has quality all its own. Some things just don't scale well no matter how you'd like the world to work linearly.
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Cali also has a LOT more people to pay for it. I don't question that Cali's budget for road maintenance has to be higher than Norways, but I'd like to see whether they spend more than 7 times what Norway spends and if, on what... because it sure as fuck ain't roads!
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The States seem to be having issues with the concept of balance. That a social net is equated with actual socialism shoes this quite nicely.
The debate over gun control goes a similar route. If you're pro guns, the opposition paints you as a mass shooting waiting to happen and if you think a discussion about gun policies should be opened, the pro-gunners will start foaming at the mouth and go "Over my cold, dead hands."
It's all or nothing with the US. Probably part of the reason you have a two-party system g
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You don't know much about America beyond what you read about on the Internet or watch on TV. The vast majority of Americans aren't extremists at all, but very reasonable people. You should just shut up now.
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That's not exactly the people I met in the US. I dare say that I do know quite a few. From all walks of life. And yes, I do know a few "from my dead cold hands" pro-gun advocates as well as those that think the 2nd should be repealed and soon, because guns don't belong into civilian hands. But you know what, those are few and far between. Most Americans don't care either way. They may have a gun, they may not, but in the end, it's not something that runs their life. What does is their family, their job and
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Ah the Norway comparison. Tell you what let me nationalize American oil production and evict everyone but a relatively homogeneous group of white protestant and Catholics adherents and I'll deliver you a nice well run North America, with great transportation, low crime, clean streets, and plenty for everyone.
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Replace with Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark... Same deal. No oil, though.
The tax systems are very different. Norway more ev (Score:3)
The tax systems of the Nordic countries vs the United States and California in particular are very different. For example, almost everybody pays income taxes in Norway and Denmark. In the United States, 42% pay zero or less (getting a "refund" of more than their withholding). When your tax bill is about 50% of your income while most of your friends pay nothing, it can be tempting to make things "more fair" by creative reporting. At least, I found it frustrating that my in-laws viewed taxes as "free money
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The Nordic countries would like you to know they aren't socialist:
Don't tell me, I know what socialist means. Maybe you could educate a few people across the pond.
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A fundamental mechanism of capitalism is economic decision making by individuals, in proportion to the amount of wealth they control. That conflicts with transferring wealth for collective action.
Countries with mixed economies have the ability to benefit from the best of both worlds: they're capitalist for things where capitalism works well, and socialist where central control works better. The US is also a mixed economy (far from the most capitalist country ever), but the anti-communist sentiments purposel
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It's not the case today.
Nearly half of the population consumes more in public services and/or welfare than they contribute in taxes
And they vote to effectively extort more from the productive class
So it's completely understandable that people are not happy paying money to perpetually sustain the lazy. So they resist any way they can.
Als
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It isn't only due to the misappropriation of tax monies. It's due to the onerous nature of tax reporting in the US. They create Byzantine rules, dare you to break said rules, and then expect you to pay accountants non-zero sums of money to avoid breaking said rules.
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In his documentary 'Requiem For The American Dream' he says that paying taxes should really be something people look forward to and enjoy doing - in seeing their earning going towards good and just causes for society. Instead it's something people loath and avoid as much as possible, to the point of criminality, because they see their taxes being spent so badly.
Replace the word tax with charity and you have a point. Tax is theft, it's money taken under threat of violence. Charity is something given by people who have it to spare.
Which one of these sounds more "enjoyable" to you?
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Tax is theft, it's money taken under threat of violence. Charity is something given by people who have it to spare.
Tax is paying for things that benefit you, whether directly or indirectly. Charity is paying for things that don't benefit you.
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... because they see their taxes being spent so badly.
I think you grossly underestimate simple human greed. The people doing most of this, especially at the scale the article is talking about, don't care about how tax money is spent, they just want to keep as much of their own money as they can, law be damned.
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The harsh reality of capitalism is that money is the end goal... not the "good of society". It fuels greed-driven mindsets.
How many times do I count the word criminal (Score:2)
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Taxes are crime. How interesting. Here's another revelation for you: While trying to freely exchange dollars to beef at McDonald's, you will be taxed in most (or all) of the United States.
Unlike currency exchanges, I have found eating necessary to survival. Once we have figured out how to remove taxes from the basic necessities of life, then we can work out how to improve yields on your exotic investment vehicles. I mean, free you from the bonds of slavery. Yeah, that's what it's about. Freedom.
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Think of it as theft of service. Enjoying the service then ducking the bill. The ultimate dine and dash.
Virtual Goods (Score:2)
I warned about this nearly a decade ago and we are getting closer and closer. If Crypto-currencies have 'intrinsic monetary value' then your WoW or MMO gold will also. You bet your ass the IRS is looking into taxing virtual goods value. Remember the Diablo Auction House. That had a tie to Virtual to Real currency exchange rates. How about Eve Online's PLEX which also strongly tied a virtual currency to real dollar valuation. If Bitcoin, a virtual currency is recognized by the government as an object with re
Re: Virtual Goods (Score:1)
F.A. Hayek in 1984 (Score:2)
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