- me: I stole a bike.
- owner: Plz, gov, help me get it back.
- me: Here, my income taxes.
- gov: Yup. We’re all goood. Bye.
- owner: wtf gov
- gov: try another gov
Europeans: You guys have to file your own taxes?
What do you mean? So do Europeans? In some countries you don’t have to if all your income is your salary and have no extra expenses.
In Belgium they also fill in the expenses automatically.
The only thing you need to do is check if anything is missing, and just not do anything if everything is correct. Which it usually is.
Yes, but it is different. I’m employed, so my employer pays taxes, social security, pension fund money, and health insurance into the proper channels, and I get an “after taxes” direct transfer (which is standard here for decades now).
The tax rates the employer pays are based on complicated tables which are calculated on average annual incomes and no deductions. So they are usually higher than they would be in reality.
At the beginning of the year, we get a paper from the employer stating how much taxes they have paid out of my pay over the year. Then we can take (you are not required to, but letting this slip would be stupid) tax forms and fill them out, or use a tax software (costs about €5 and contains all the legal tricks and up-to-date information). There you can claim all things that would reduce your tax load, e.g. Text benefits for education, for having a handicap, times on unemployment, change of pay rate, office supplies you need for business purposes, medical costs (which usually is not much, because we have working health insurance, but there are co-pays and things that are not covered, like something that is a big thing for us: a fixed rate per kilometer for trips to doctors and physiotherapeuts, which is a list of several pages and alone reduces our tax load by several hundred euro).
You submit this as a paper form, or, more modern, online. We usually hear back from the tax guys a few weeks later, asking for invoices and receipts, send them in, and again a few weeks later, we get money back. As we can claim a lot of stuff (my wife is handicapped), we usually get a few thousand euro back - which is a good incentive to file taxes! But even as a normal person, it pays, as there is a form “work-related costs” where people can claim money for commuting and similar things.
As a self-employed person, one has to submit taxes for the business, of course.
What you’re describing is basically identical to what happens in the US, so not sure what is “different.”
Nothing, because the first sentence made pretty clear they’re an American
Ah yes, Us Americans with our using Euros and Kilometers. You got me!
They specifically use the currency euro in their comment…
Check the tax office’s website of the country you live in, you might be up for an unpleasant surprise. Pretty normal to have to file a tax report if you are a grown up. There are exceptions in a few countries if all your income is from salaried work and you don’t have any deductions to claim but not the norm
CRA (Canada) basically fills in your info for you, you just need to authorize your account in your tax software. Doable online too. If you run a business they obviously can’t do this but if you’re an employee they have all your info.
Sure they have all your info. I’m not familiar with Canada but in other countries where this happens happens, the site tells you that you need to check that everything is correct, and that YOU are responsible for the information submitted. When you confirm you have effectively submitted your tax return, albeit with the help of a number of automations.
I’m in Australia now, and that how it works here too. Yes it’s just a couple of clicks for most people, but you are indeed doing your tax return.
I haven’t don’t it in Europe in a while, but that was the case when I was there (albeit less automated) and I’m pretty sure that’s the case in most countries
The feds are actually disturbingly fair about this. You can deduct your legal fees as a business expense.
wikipedia excerpt
While embezzlers, thieves, and the like are forced to report their illegally acquired income for tax purposes, they may also take deductions for costs relating to criminal activity. For example, in Commissioner v. Tellier, a taxpayer was found guilty of engaging in business activities that violated the Securities Act of 1933.[8] The taxpayer subsequently deducted the legal fees he spent while defending himself.[8] The U.S. Supreme Court held that the taxpayer was allowed to deduct the legal fees from his gross income because they meet the requirements of §162(a),[9] which allows the taxpayer to deduct all the “ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on a trade or business.”[10] The Court reasoned (and the Internal Revenue Service did not contest the point) that it was ordinary and necessary for a person engaged in a business to expect to have legal fees associated with that business, even though such things may only happen once in a lifetime.[9] Therefore, the taxpayer in Tellier was allowed to deduct his legal fees from his gross income, even though he incurred the fees because of his crime. The U.S. Supreme Court in Tellier reiterated that the purpose of the tax code was to tax net income, not punish unlawful behavior.[11] The Court suggested that if this was not the case, Congress would change the tax code to include special tax rules for illegal conduct
Yeah, they say this shit but hide the addendum forms like five layers deep in a FAQ link tree. And don’t even get me started on the forms you need if you steal drugs. Like, holy shit. I hate to be a bureaucan’t, but somethings gotta change
If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.
Lesson learned. Steal on Jan 1st 00:01, return to owner on Dec 31st 23:59, rinse repeat.
I feel like this is just borrowing with extra steps
Involuntary borrowing. But also nothing stops you from stealing it again on 01-01 @ 00:01.
Dang.
“We’re not the cops, we just want our cut.”
– IRS Probably
So then if you get caught and these are taken away from you, I assume you can declare it as a loss and get an equivalent deduction the next year? I wonder if anyone’s ever used this to their advantage to game their tax rates?
“damn, I can’t steal any more this year or I go up another tax bracket”
Americans will never understand tax brackets.
Internet users will never understand sarcasm.
From what I remember you actually can’t claim deductions for illegal activity. I believe the post title is wrong.
Yeah, they got Al Capone for tax evasion, and they’ll get you for confessing to a crime on official government documents.
Line 8z is “all other types of income” it’s not specifically “income from crimes.”
It’s just a catch all for anything not covered in A through P. Like, gambling winnings or unreported cash tips. The IRS just wants their cut. They don’t actually care where the money comes from. An insurance payout might go on that line.
They’re already getting their cut from sales tax after an insurance payout. That ain’t income. Do I get to also declare a loss on anything lost, stolen, or depreciating in value?
Edit: downvotes from people overpaying the IRS, or who’ve never had to make an insurance claim
Literally yes. In fact about half of the lines 8 are to report losses.
Income is any income, you pay a sales tax when you buy goods, the merchant pays income tax on those same dollars. Or they would if somehow during a record profit year they actually made no money.
No. Insurance payouts are not overall taxable. You also cannot claim depreciation on your personal vehicle, and if you lose property, the IRS doesn’t give a shit.
Certain insurance payouts, specifically those that exceed your premiums, are taxable. Lump sum payments generally aren’t unless it’s a benefit provided by your employer in excess of 50k, but annuities are taxable. As would be any interest you collect on those policies.
Depreciation on a vehicle you use to generate income is deductable, as would be say, depreciation on a home you rent out. And if you rent out rooms in your personal home but don’t run a business renting out property, that income needs to be reported too.
This discussion has only been about personal taxes, so stop bringing up business taxation.
Are you talking solely about life insurance? Because that is one very specific thing, and payouts from that are not in the same category at all as any other typical insurance.
Completely seriously; while I’m sure essentially no one actually does, the IRS is not going to like network with the FBI or your local police department if you, for some reason, decide to pay taxes on your weed sale profits. Unless you report that you’re selling sex slaves they seriously could not care less.
I know it’s just a joke image but I do love the idea of someone who makes much of their money illegally but also has this very honorable commitment to paying their fair share in taxes.
Also you’re allowed to plead the fifth on the origin of the income IIRC, though honestly that’s just as likely to get you looked at by the FBI/local constabulary.
The IRS doesn’t report it to the FBI because that’s not their job. If you’re already under investigation and the FBI asks, they’ll hand over the info, but they won’t initiate anything, they just want their cut.
On the other hand if you’re making enough money illegally to feel the need to declare it on your taxes (either for ethical reasons or because you don’t want to get done like Al Capone) law enforcement is probably already looking at you.
I know it’s just a joke image
It isn’t. (pdf)
I am obviously not claiming the image is fake, I’m claiming it’s being used in a joking context
I know it’s just a joke image but I do love the idea of someone who makes much of their money illegally but also has this very honorable commitment to paying their fair share in taxes.
If you’re convicted of criminal activity you’d be smart to include that in your taxes. The last thing you need is to be convicted of tax fraud in addition to getting convicted of drug trafficking. If the government already has a record of you profiting from criminal activity, make sure you give them their cut.
As the joker once said:
I’m crazy enough to take on batman, but the IRS? No thank you
More specifically the IRS field book discourages reporting illegal income to other agencies for basically everything besides terrorism. Also, when you file taxes there’s a reason there’s an “other income” field. Nobody expects you to list “MS-13” as your employer. You can report money earned from illegal activities to avoid additional federal charges being tacked on
IRS isn’t a snitch
Exactly. I’ve seen such a gigantic rise in like “conspiracy-everything” posts online (wherein people seemingly assume that everything ever done by the government is in some way a poorly concealed conspiracy) and i think anyone who has actually worked under government funding can pretty quickly attest that this just… isn’t how things work.
All these “little conspiracies” operate under the assumption that the US government is this hyper-connected, ultra advanced and professional shadowy room where everyone is out to get non-government employees for vague purposes (“they just want to have control… man…”.)
When really, 99% of government employees are like some guy or gal you went to high school with who is working in a cubicle because the benefits are pretty decent
Anyway, not to make the joke post too serious. I just always worry the naively minded might take posts like this too seriously lol
The number of people in government who get promoted because they’re awful and that’s the easiest way for their boss to be rid of them…
In my experience this is essentially never the case. I struggle to think of a circumstance where it would be
And reporting “other income” wouldn’t flag you as a likely criminal anyway, unless it was a massive amount. They don’t know if you got it from selling weed, picking pockets, or mowing your neighbor’s lawn (no, Bill is not going to submit a form 1099 for you, he’s just going to hire a professional lawn service instead if you’re going to be weird about it).
The grifters have succeeded 100% if you think paying taxes is honourable in any way shape or form, especially in a declining empire that fields the most onerous army in history.
I like clean water, good weather forecasts, and I want to fix the bridges.
what the hell does decline have to do with the morals of it? In any case, while there are certainly misused funds, the truth of the matter is that it is vitally important to keep society functioning, and that doing this requires a lot of money. If not taxes, where else do you propose this funding come?
Idk man I’ve worked in social services under a multitude of government funded grants and I’m pretty sure tax evasion is extremely bad for many of the homeless veterans / abused children / etc I’ve worked with who are dependent on said grants.
Yes, a good chunk of the American tax income goes to pretty bad stuff, but A. not all of us are American, and B. not all of that tax goes to bad stuff
Charitable donations are tax deductible, your goal should be to spend your entire tax return on charity so your tax is at worst an interest free loan to the government and at best it might actually do some good in the world.
Fuck no, charity sucks for many things.
Let’s take the duty of a state, such as caring for its citizens and divide it up amongst 1000s of little groups each with highly paid CEOs, CFOs, and COOs and huge costs spent on advertising and fundraising! Oh and you get zero democratic say in these organisations or how they’re run.
I’d rather see my money going towards healthcare, education, social services, etc.
…I do love the idea of someone who makes much of their money illegally but also has this very honorable commitment to paying their fair share in taxes.
There’s, perhaps, a more practical explanation. As I’ve read before (in some other phrasing): If you’re going to commit a crime, commit only one at a time.
In this case, if you’re going to make your money illegally, for goodness’ sake, don’t evade taxes.
Wasn’t that one woman who lied about cancer and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars fully brought down for tax evasion because they couldn’t really get her on much else? The scamanda woman
Seriously though, some people have almost pulled off some crazy illegal shit and then got caught because a headlight was out or someone was doing something stupid. If you’re going to commit crime, one at a time.
Timothy McVeigh was pulled over for driving without a license plate an hour and a half after blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.
Within 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charlie Hanger for driving without a license plate and arrested for illegal weapons possession. Forensic evidence quickly linked McVeigh and Nichols to the attack; Nichols was arrested, and within days, both were charged.
He likely would always have been caught, but he got picked up quick because of that.
This is absolutely it.
Its just one less way that they can come at you, it also means its harder for them to confiscate your property as proceeds of crime.
Also on virtually every gangster or crime movie/series there is either a bad guy getting caught by irs(?) agents for tax evasion, or plays it super safe and pays them diligently to avoid that very scenario.
Slightly related question: is money laundering, in itself, illegal?
Like, say I have $1000 from my regular W-2 job, taxes paid.
I launder it through a bunch of accounts. Is that illegal?
Or is it the mixing with dirty funds that makes it illegal?
Not sure you can “launder” clean money.
If you get paid money legally and just… transfer it a bunch through various banking accounts or similar. That is obviously not illegal in any way.
If you get paid money legally and then say, “buy a lot of car washes” at the car wash your cousin owns and then he pays you the money back and you two don’t report that to the IRS, that would be tax fraud (though laws on “gifting” money get pretty vague)
Basically, it’s really hard to somehow illegally “launder” clean money
If it’s legal money, then you aren’t laundering it. Transferring money you’ve obtained legally is just transferring money. It’s only money laundering by definition if the money was illegally gained.
The premise of it is basically to have an easier way to prosecute organized crime since those folks rarely are keeping honest books.
Actually what happened is that some criminal got caught. And in addition to everything, he was accused of tax fraud. He successfully argued though, that because there wasn’t a field to properly declare his taxes, rhat he would be committing fraud by lying about his income, and as such had no option. This is what led to those fields to exist
Kudos to whoever that was. It’s not easy to beat the IRS
So, if you declare that money it is already clean?
If I declare 100m of selling coke, and pay 60m in taxs, the remaining 40m are clean?
just means you’re not committing two crimes, and as even the joker knows, you don’t fuck with the IRS
No, paying income taxes isn’t money laundering. Those two are totally unrelated.
Also, money laundering doesn’t make it not-a-crime to have dirty money, it just makes it harder to trace the crime. It is, in fact, a crime in itself.
They still miss the “declare here the wages you stole”
But those are already taxed as ordinary income
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
TL;DR- if you do this you are foolish and you are going to get fucked, probably forcefully in prison.
No shit.
I can not find it. Maybe I am blind, but where in that article does it say the CRA reports criminal activity to the Department of Justice?
It sounds odd but there was a Supreme Court about it. Essentially someone claimed they shouldn’t have to pay taxes on the profits of crime and the Court ruled they did. So they had to create a way for people to do that. For what it is worth, the 5th amendment protects you from incriminating yourself, so you are allowed to decline to provide the details of where the money came from, but it’s a bit like paying your parents for something you broke and then just not telling them what it is, and then expecting them not to look around the house.
“it would be an extreme if not an extravagant application of the Fifth Amendment to say that it authorized a man to refuse to state the amount of his income because it had been made in crime. … He could not draw a conjurer’s circle around the whole matter by his own declaration that to write any word upon the government blank would bring him into danger of the law.” … "It is urged, that, if a return were made, the defendant [Sullivan] would be entitled to deduct illegal expenses, such as bribery. This by no means follows, but it will be time enough to consider the question when a taxpayer has the temerity to raise it.”
That’s what ended up getting Capone too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/?sh=2a73f4f27c4c
I love how the government gets to have it both ways. You gotta report income from illegal activities, but you can’t deduct costs from illegal activities. I’m of the opinion that deductions shouldn’t be a thing at all, but I’d at least like some consistency!
What about legally questionable activities? You know, from things that aren’t exactly crimes, but sure look like it? Asking for a friend
If you’re making money off of it Uncle Sam wants his cut.
That’s a great question. We can help you with that, but first we’ll need a few more details. 👀
If they’re not illegal then you’ve got nothing to worry about how it looks, and you probably wouldn’t need to ask.
So I’d be really sure about the legality part, it sounds like you may possibly be engaging in a little personal ambiguity regarding the facts.
