Posted on 05/01/2014 11:26:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Flint, Mich. Earnest moralists lament Americans distrust of government. What really is regrettable is that government does much to earn distrust, as Terry Dehko, 70, and his daughter Sandy Thomas, 41, understand.
Terry, who came to Michigan from Iraq in 1970, soon did what immigrants often do: He went into business, buying Schotts Supermarket in Fraser, Mich., where he still works six days a week. The IRS, a tentacle of a government that spent $3.5 trillion in 2013, tried to steal more than $35,000 from Terry and Sandy that year.
Sandy, a mother of four, has a masters degree in urban planning but has worked in the store off and on since she was twelve. She remembers, They just walked into the store and announced that they had emptied the stores bank account. The IRS agents believed, or pretended to believe, that Terry and Sandy were or conceivably could be which is sufficient for the IRS conducting a criminal enterprise when not selling groceries.
What pattern of behavior supposedly aroused the suspicions of a federal government that is ignorant of how small businesses function? Terry and Sandy regularly make deposits of less than $10,000 in the bank across the street. Federal law, aimed primarily at money laundering by drug dealers, requires banks to report cash deposits of more than $10,000. It also makes it illegal to
structure deposits to evade such reporting.
Because 35 percent of Schotts Supermarkets receipts are in cash, Terry and Sandy make frequent trips to the bank to avoid tempting actual criminals by having large sums at the store. Besides, their insurance policy covers no cash loss in excess of $10,000.
In 2010 and 2012, IRS agents visited the store and examined Terrys and Sandys conduct. In 2012, the IRS notified them that it identified no violations of banking laws. But on January 22, 2013, Terry and Sandy discovered that the IRS had obtained a secret warrant and emptied the stores bank account. Sandy says that if the IRS had acted the day before, there would have been only about $2,000 in the account. Should we trust that todays IRS was just lucky in its timing?
The IRS used civil forfeiture, the power to seize property suspected of being produced by, or involved with, crime. The IRS could have dispelled its suspicions of Terry and Sandy, if it actually had any, by simply asking them about the reasons prudence, and the insurance limits for their banking practices. It had, however, a reason not to ask obvious questions before proceeding.
The civil-forfeiture law if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
Sandy remembers her father exclaiming, Arent we in the United States? We did nothing wrong! They did something right in discovering the Institute for Justices activities against civil-forfeiture abuse. IJ, a libertarian defender of property rights and other American premises, says that what was done to Terry is done routinely across the nation indeed, it was done almost simultaneously to the owner of a gas station near Schotts Supermarket who deposited his cash receipts whenever he could get to the bank, typically every few days.
Civil forfeiture proceeds on the guilty-until-proven-innocent principle, forcing property owners of limited means to hire lawyers and engage in protracted proceedings against a government with limitless resources, just to prove their innocence. Says IJ:
To make matters worse, forfeiture law treats property owners like random bystanders and requires them to intervene in the lawsuit filed by the government against their property just to get it back. That is why civil forfeiture cases have such unusual names, such as United States v. $35,651.11 in U.S. Currency the case involving Terry and Sandy.
In what it probably considered an act of unmerited mercy, the IRS offered to return 20 percent of Terrys money. Such extortion pocketing other peoples money often succeeds when the IRS bullies bewildered people not represented by IJ, which forced the government to return all of Terrys and the gas-station owners money.
IJs countersuit seeks an injunction to prevent such IRS thefts and extortions. Meanwhile, earnest moralists might consider the possibility that Americans distrust of government is insufficient.
George F. Will is a Pulitzer Prizewinning syndicated columnist. © 2014 The Washington Post
It is important to understand States also do this.
Most fail to protect their money by moving it:
out of state (different legal jurisdiction)
out of country (different legal jurisdiction).
It will get worse.
This ain’t the America I grew up in...
This is an old story. GW should have googled. The government dropped the charges and returned the money.
Their strategy for protecting their property from criminals seems to have failed.
RE: This is an old story. GW should have googled. The government dropped the charges and returned the money.
Did they return ALL of the money? According to George Will, the IRS only offered them 20%.
But even if the IRS did return all of the money, the mere fact hat they would HARASS peaceful citizens is surely grounds for concern.
Civil forfeiture is an evil thing that should be grounds for revolution. It is theft by a nicer name.
TC
“Did they return ALL of the money? According to George Will, the IRS only offered them 20%.”
Old story. GW should have googled. IRS returned all of the money.
You must have missed the part where he said the money was returned.
The questions remain: Which Napoleon at the IRS decided that this was a good idea? What was the reasoning behind the theft (That’s what it was) in the first place? Is this guy still in charge or in a position to make decisions of this magnitude?
“You must have missed the part where he said the money was returned”
I had to go back and re-read that sentence three times!
You were what I call “confidently wrong”. The confidently wrong rarely apologize for being asses.
“You were what I call confidently wrong. The confidently wrong rarely apologize for being asses.”
you are the ass. I admitted my mistake but you label and name call. What is your problem?
I'm just providing a service to those to blast onto a thread and correct others without really reading the story.
Your'e welcome.
“I’m just providing a service”
Calling people ass’s is a service? Get a life!
...says the guy who came to this thread to (incorrectly) tell George Will to get his facts straight.
Twice.
“...says the guy who came to this thread to (incorrectly) tell George Will to get his facts straight.”
He hid the final outcome behind a sentence stating that the government only offered 20%. He did not identify it as an ‘old story’ that had been resolved with full restitution. He mislead his readers. But I didn’t call him names. Get a life.
“Twice”
Yes, to two that also missed the hidden outcome. Apparently GW did a poor job of writing his story.
Blah blah blah I don't recognize when I 'm wrong. I can't read either.
Like I said....confidently wrong.
You're welcome.
I see from you handle ‘ass’ is your favorite word
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