5 ms·

US man pays tax bill using five wheelbarrows of coins

36 points by giles 10y ago

jjawssd 10y ago
If you play stupid games you will win stupid prizes
sean_patel 10y ago
> Nick Stafford's coin payment required 11 people who were hired to break open the paper rolls of the coins, taking four hours. So you are telling me this 'Businessman' wasted 11 peeps x 4 hours x 10$ min wage = $440, to 'make a statement' to IRS and pay his $400 tax bill with pennies / coins?! What kind of a businessman does that? What a waste of man power.
- knappe 10y ago
  "$3,000 tax bill using five wheelbarrows containing 300,000 coins." Right in the caption. A smart business man. He has gotten a lot of free publicity out of it.
  - dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
    > A smart business man. He has gotten a lot of free publicity out of it. I can do a lot of things for attention; it doesn't make me smart.
    - Shivetya 10y ago
      it is all about proper application and this guy executed very well by exploiting the well established dislike for taxes and snarky but lawful adherence to the law. if payment can be made onerous then perhaps the taxing authority is itself
      - dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
        I'm still not seeing the exploitation here. Does he even own a business?
  - sean_patel 10y ago
    > free publicity out of it. Ok what free publicity? For his business? Do we even know what his business is? No website. No name. I meant that he wasted labor time (and money). That's not a smart business man. If he had had a plug for his business website or service in all the news, then it's smart and you can say "publicity for $440. Otherwise, it's just a stupid stunt that wasted everyone's time -- the IRS, the media, you and me (reading it and reacting to it).
- abfan1127 10y ago
  one who is fed up with dealing with an overwhelming bureaucracy.
  - cellularmitosis 10y ago
    And one who solves his problems by harassing rank-and-file employees who have no authority to address his problem.
    - sean_patel 10y ago
      Exactly! He wasted the rank-and-file employees time and probably caused them aggravation. They should sue for bodily harm -- thumb and fingers and wrists sore from counting his stupid coins.
- Ratufa 10y ago
  If he wanted to make a public statement and get publicity for his views, $440 to get on the BBC and various other news outlets seems like a good deal.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  Surely he was also required to pay the extra costs for the transaction at the receiving end? I can't imagine the authority was somehow required to accept his coin payment, and not only accept but do it for free?
  - ScottBev 10y ago
    Its required by US law
  - mixmastamyk 10y ago
    "Legal tender, for all debts, public and private."
    - abiox 10y ago
      the armchair-lawyer in me feels like the status of being legal tender doesn't itself mandate the acceptance of any particular item of currency.
  - crystalmeph 10y ago
    Yes, they were required to accept it. They are collecting taxes for the government (I'm not sure if the VA DMV is directly run by the government, or is a contractor doing business for the government, but it doesn't make a difference in this case), which means they have to accept legal US money, in any denomination, because of this section of US code, which he mentions on his website[0]: As per section 31 U.S.C. 5103 of the "United States Coinage Act of 1965" Federal law specifically says: "United States coins and currency are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." Even charging an extra handling fee for dealing with all the coins is difficult to justify given the wording of the law. Luckily, carrying around 5 wheelbarrows of coins is also inconvenient for the person who's doing the protesting, so you really only see this sort of thing when someone is really aggravated and has lots of free time and money, it's not like we have a rash of DMV offices being crushed under a singularity's worth of pennies. [0]http://www.craftvinyl.com/page165 http://www.craftvinyl.com/page165 (He actually got the BBC to link directly to his site, wow, he just made another million I bet!)
- loeg 10y ago
  He claims to pay $300k/year in income taxes; owns 3 houses and at least 3 vehicles. I don't think the cost of the stunt is material to him.
ourmandave 10y ago
Take that cashless society advocates! Wait...
- qbrass 10y ago
  US man pays tax bill using five wheelbarrows of prepaid cards with pennies left on the balance.
jay_kyburz 10y ago
Not legal tender in Australia. They could just refuse to accept it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender
- loeg 10y ago
  The US really ought to do away with pennies, and probably nickels as well. This stunt would be 10x less silly with dimes.
  - snarf21 10y ago
    It is even possible that dimes should go away. "The United States abandoned its own most worthless coin, the half-cent, in 1857, when a half-cent was worth more than a dime is today." [http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/04/bringing-dollars-and-cents-into-this-century/please-finally-end-the-penny http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/04/bringing-dol...] We need to drop the paper dollar too. The biggest problem is that the new dollar coin is too close in size to the quarter and people get confused (especially elderly) but I think we have to suck it up and say tough. Some countries even have $2 and $5 dollar coins. As things go more and more digital, we need these denominations less and less. As for the rounding or difference up to a quarter, make that a federal sales tax to fund currency production. If you pay with cash, you incur an additional cost of up to $0.24 per transaction to support the cost of money. If you pay digitally, you pay the exact amount. Just a thought...... :)
  - alxmdev 10y ago
    Canada did away with pennies: http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/phasing-out-the-penny-6900002 http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/phasing-out-the... From Wikipedia: Production of the penny ceased in May 2012, and the Royal Canadian Mint ceased the distribution of them as of February 4, 2013. However, like all discontinued currency in the Canadian monetary system, the coin remains legal tender. Once distribution of the coin ceased, though, vendors no longer were expected to return pennies as change for cash purchases, and were encouraged to round purchases to the nearest five cents. Non-cash transactions are still denominated to the cent.
svachalek 10y ago
This seems to be a statement on the stupidity of still using pennies in 2017, more so than the point he was actually trying to make.
- jhoechtl 10y ago
  Whats wrong with using pennies?
  - abiox 10y ago
    the question is a bit open ended, but for one: a penny costs more to make than it's worth (at least in terms of face value).
  - tener 10y ago
    They are worth less than they cost? Imagine using coins worth $0.001 or $0.0001. You could use them, but why?
mattbgates 10y ago
When you make the government work for their share of your share... like a boss! ;)
neverminder 10y ago
Has been done (tried) before: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/LITHUANIA/1999-09/0936228834 http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/LITHUANIA/1999... , visual: http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+_7ffbead1aa9217ad05eb5487c4c8f75f.jpg http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+_7ffbead1aa9217ad05eb5487c4...
my_first_acct 10y ago
I was about to repeat the old story that (in the US) pennies are not legal tender in amounts over 25 cents, but it turns out that since 1965, pennies are legal tender in any quantity. However, payees are not obliged to accept them; for instance, municipal bus lines can refuse to accept fare payments in pennies. [1][2] [1] http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp [2] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages...
velodrome 10y ago
This guy should have went down to the DMV to get his questions answered. He wasted more time going through all this mess. Being self employed, I hardly have time to sleep, much less make a trip to my local DMV just to ask a "30 second question" so I tried to call my "local" DMV office by calling calling the only phone number listed on the internet for my local DMV.
toodlebunions 10y ago
Who has time for that?

36 points by giles 10y ago

If you play stupid games you will win stupid prizes

> Nick Stafford's coin payment required 11 people who were hired to break open the paper rolls of the coins, taking four hours. So you are telling me this 'Businessman' wasted 11 peeps x 4 hours x 10$ min wage = $440, to 'make a statement' to IRS and pay his $400 tax bill with pennies / coins?! What kind of a businessman does that? What a waste of man power.

knappe 10y ago
"$3,000 tax bill using five wheelbarrows containing 300,000 coins." Right in the caption. A smart business man. He has gotten a lot of free publicity out of it.
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
  > A smart business man. He has gotten a lot of free publicity out of it. I can do a lot of things for attention; it doesn't make me smart.
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    it is all about proper application and this guy executed very well by exploiting the well established dislike for taxes and snarky but lawful adherence to the law. if payment can be made onerous then perhaps the taxing authority is itself
    - dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
      I'm still not seeing the exploitation here. Does he even own a business?
- sean_patel 10y ago
  > free publicity out of it. Ok what free publicity? For his business? Do we even know what his business is? No website. No name. I meant that he wasted labor time (and money). That's not a smart business man. If he had had a plug for his business website or service in all the news, then it's smart and you can say "publicity for $440. Otherwise, it's just a stupid stunt that wasted everyone's time -- the IRS, the media, you and me (reading it and reacting to it).
abfan1127 10y ago
one who is fed up with dealing with an overwhelming bureaucracy.
- cellularmitosis 10y ago
  And one who solves his problems by harassing rank-and-file employees who have no authority to address his problem.
  - sean_patel 10y ago
    Exactly! He wasted the rank-and-file employees time and probably caused them aggravation. They should sue for bodily harm -- thumb and fingers and wrists sore from counting his stupid coins.
Ratufa 10y ago
If he wanted to make a public statement and get publicity for his views, $440 to get on the BBC and various other news outlets seems like a good deal.
alkonaut 10y ago
Surely he was also required to pay the extra costs for the transaction at the receiving end? I can't imagine the authority was somehow required to accept his coin payment, and not only accept but do it for free?
- ScottBev 10y ago
  Its required by US law
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  "Legal tender, for all debts, public and private."
  - abiox 10y ago
    the armchair-lawyer in me feels like the status of being legal tender doesn't itself mandate the acceptance of any particular item of currency.
- crystalmeph 10y ago
  Yes, they were required to accept it. They are collecting taxes for the government (I'm not sure if the VA DMV is directly run by the government, or is a contractor doing business for the government, but it doesn't make a difference in this case), which means they have to accept legal US money, in any denomination, because of this section of US code, which he mentions on his website[0]: As per section 31 U.S.C. 5103 of the "United States Coinage Act of 1965" Federal law specifically says: "United States coins and currency are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." Even charging an extra handling fee for dealing with all the coins is difficult to justify given the wording of the law. Luckily, carrying around 5 wheelbarrows of coins is also inconvenient for the person who's doing the protesting, so you really only see this sort of thing when someone is really aggravated and has lots of free time and money, it's not like we have a rash of DMV offices being crushed under a singularity's worth of pennies. [0]http://www.craftvinyl.com/page165 http://www.craftvinyl.com/page165 (He actually got the BBC to link directly to his site, wow, he just made another million I bet!)
loeg 10y ago
He claims to pay $300k/year in income taxes; owns 3 houses and at least 3 vehicles. I don't think the cost of the stunt is material to him.

ourmandave 10y ago

Take that cashless society advocates! Wait...

qbrass 10y ago
US man pays tax bill using five wheelbarrows of prepaid cards with pennies left on the balance.

jay_kyburz 10y ago

Not legal tender in Australia. They could just refuse to accept it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender

loeg 10y ago
The US really ought to do away with pennies, and probably nickels as well. This stunt would be 10x less silly with dimes.
- snarf21 10y ago
  It is even possible that dimes should go away. "The United States abandoned its own most worthless coin, the half-cent, in 1857, when a half-cent was worth more than a dime is today." [http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/04/bringing-dollars-and-cents-into-this-century/please-finally-end-the-penny http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/04/bringing-dol...] We need to drop the paper dollar too. The biggest problem is that the new dollar coin is too close in size to the quarter and people get confused (especially elderly) but I think we have to suck it up and say tough. Some countries even have $2 and $5 dollar coins. As things go more and more digital, we need these denominations less and less. As for the rounding or difference up to a quarter, make that a federal sales tax to fund currency production. If you pay with cash, you incur an additional cost of up to $0.24 per transaction to support the cost of money. If you pay digitally, you pay the exact amount. Just a thought...... :)
- alxmdev 10y ago
  Canada did away with pennies: http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/phasing-out-the-penny-6900002 http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/phasing-out-the... From Wikipedia: Production of the penny ceased in May 2012, and the Royal Canadian Mint ceased the distribution of them as of February 4, 2013. However, like all discontinued currency in the Canadian monetary system, the coin remains legal tender. Once distribution of the coin ceased, though, vendors no longer were expected to return pennies as change for cash purchases, and were encouraged to round purchases to the nearest five cents. Non-cash transactions are still denominated to the cent.

svachalek 10y ago

This seems to be a statement on the stupidity of still using pennies in 2017, more so than the point he was actually trying to make.

jhoechtl 10y ago
Whats wrong with using pennies?
- abiox 10y ago
  the question is a bit open ended, but for one: a penny costs more to make than it's worth (at least in terms of face value).
- tener 10y ago
  They are worth less than they cost? Imagine using coins worth $0.001 or $0.0001. You could use them, but why?

mattbgates 10y ago

When you make the government work for their share of your share... like a boss! ;)

neverminder 10y ago

Has been done (tried) before: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/LITHUANIA/1999-09/0936228834 http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/LITHUANIA/1999... , visual: http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+_7ffbead1aa9217ad05eb5487c4c8f75f.jpg http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+_7ffbead1aa9217ad05eb5487c4...

my_first_acct 10y ago

I was about to repeat the old story that (in the US) pennies are not legal tender in amounts over 25 cents, but it turns out that since 1965, pennies are legal tender in any quantity. However, payees are not obliged to accept them; for instance, municipal bus lines can refuse to accept fare payments in pennies. [1][2] [1] http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp [2] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages...

velodrome 10y ago

This guy should have went down to the DMV to get his questions answered. He wasted more time going through all this mess. Being self employed, I hardly have time to sleep, much less make a trip to my local DMV just to ask a "30 second question" so I tried to call my "local" DMV office by calling calling the only phone number listed on the internet for my local DMV.

toodlebunions 10y ago

Who has time for that?