Posted on 05/08/2015 7:33:14 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Although some states have moved to stop the abominable practice of civil asset forfeiture (bravo to New Mexico), the vicious monster is still alive, still seizing money and property from innocent people, still making them battle through the legal system if they want it back.
Here’s a case that ought to send shivers up your spine if you run a business that deals in a lot of cash.
Lyndon McLellan owns a gas station and convenience store in the little town of Fairmont, North Carolina. Last spring, IRS agents came to his store and informed him that they had just seized his bank account, which had more than $107,000 in it. McLellan was not accused of any crime, but the IRS was suspicious of his bank transactions. Thanks to our “war on drugs,” the government insists that we notify it whenever we deposit $10,000 or more in cash – but if someone regularly deposits significant amounts but less than $10,000, the IRS calls it “structuring” and thus suspicious.
Without any evidence of illegal activity, the government can seize bank accounts when it observes cash deposits that might be “structuring” and that is just what it did to Mr. McLellan. After grabbing his money last spring, in December the Department of Justice filed a forfeiture complaint in federal court. McLellan will lose all his money unless he is able to defeat the feds in court. (Or he can merely lose half of it if he’ll settle – more on that below.)
No American should have to fight a legal battle against the IRS and Department of Justice to get his property back when he has not even been accused of any crime, much less convicted.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (or BSA, or otherwise known as the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act) requires financial institutions in the United States to assist U.S. government agencies to detect and prevent money laundering.
Specifically, the act requires financial institutions to keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, and file reports of cash purchases of these negotiable instruments of more than $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and to report suspicious activity that might signify money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act
America’s war on small business continues.
What I find interesting about this whole thing is that inflation has made the amount so relatively small. Back in 1970, $10,000 would get you a REALLY NICE new car. Or a new house.
What I’m trying to say with my inflation remark is that aggressively enforcing this law is harassment at the very least and, more likely, theft.
Only use the bank[s] when you must now. the same with a doctor. With each of either, a record or copy of the transaction goes directly to the IRS and Quantico, VA.
Back in 1970, $10,000 would get you a REALLY NICE new car. Or a new house.
Correction 4 New Cars or a House, I can still see the commercials
So, what ever became of this. The Feds complained about feelings. How about, then, the feelings of the average American, specially at being betrayed by an agency that lied? Shouldn’t they matter, if the disposition of the issue is to be based on feelings?
There ought to be a law that a successful defense in a situation like this should be entitled to ALL its costs back.
No, it's the bureaucracy’s war on the American people.
For the sake of self aggrandizement. It’s an easy gotcha. They don’t care whether it was privacy or contraband the person wanted, that person has to be dinged Just For The King Gummit’s Honor.
That result was what was probably always intended...
And... I don’t know if it has been noted, but the situation of so called “structured” deposits of high-cash businesses (like convenience stores) is aggravated by common insurance policy limitations of coverage of undeposited cash. If it is $10 grand, then deposits will be made sooner... DUH! And this has nothing, nothing, NOTHING to do with business malfeasance.
Yet many conservatives still support the government’s War on Drugs.
IOW, the amount does not have to be 10K, just something that warrants “suspicion”.
Interesting side bar, one bank that did not adhere to these directions was Chase Manhattan when it was headed by David Rockefeller. They refused to go along with the regs at that time. Coincidently, his brother was the VP?
“America’s war on small business continues.”
No, it’s the bureaucracy’s war on the American people.
The goal of both parties (obamacare is part of this) is to make doing business so costly for small companies that one by one, they give up and the owners and employees are absorbed into corporate monoliths that fire pizza delivery guys who defend themselves or sports team owners for saying something in an illegally recorded private phone conversation.
As if that were the only card that can be played to fight these unhealthy addictions, or even the best card. Sometimes the woes of bad approaches are conflated with the woes of the core problem itself.
In general, the sense of the power and purpose and help of God has leached slowly out of Western society in the last century or so. A good life, one imbued with God, will tend to repel evil temptations on its own. Trying to hem a society in with nothing but an abundance of law is like the proverbial nailing of Jello to a tree. Never works.
That might not even be the chief intention of the politicians, but the large competing companies are not ignorant of this and will play politicians like violins.
It didn’t work with Prohibition, either.
It’s no secret that Alcoholics Anonymous came into its own AFTER the repeal. And it was considered revolutionary. It also got diluted down quickly as people didn’t like the founders’ emphasis on a specific faith, Christianity.
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