4 ms·

In a lot of jurisdictions, your friendly tax authorities won't ask or care; international fraud is a valuable source of foreign currency for many countries as l

In a lot of jurisdictions, your friendly tax authorities won't ask or care; international fraud is a valuable source of foreign currency for many countries as long as you're reasonably discreet about it. Banks and payment processors can't afford to be nearly as blasé, because they're at far greater risk of facing international sanctions; Bitcoin provides an essential layer of obfuscation and deniability.

garmaine 6y ago
In the US for example, there's an actual field in your 1040 tax return for entering income from otherwise undeclared illegal businesses. Putting your drug or extortion money there and paying taxes is not admitting guilt and can't be used against you IIRC.
- jobigoud 6y ago
  What does one gain by doing this? Is there a particular incentive apart from one's own principles?
  - icelancer 6y ago
    Tax fraud is usually much more painful to suffer from instead of a simple drug charge or illegal gambling charge. If you get nicked on drug charges there will be parallel reconstruction to get you on tax fraud despite this "not happening" between US government branches.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      I think you have it backwards. If you commit tax fraud, you will be prosecuted. And the FBI will work with the IRS to do this. But, supposedly, putting a non-zero value in the "illegal income" field of the 1040 (which ISN'T fraud) both (1) can't be used as evidence against you in court, and (2) isn't reported by default to the IRS to the FBI or other law enforcement agencies, so you don't end up on any watch lists. Of course you gotta take their word for part (2), but it is their incentive to get every tax dollar regardless of source.
      - icelancer 6y ago
        No sorry, I agree with you. I mean if you don't declare your income THEN you get busted on the illegal activity, you are guaranteed to get busted twice.
        garmaine 6y ago
        Ah I misunderstood, sorry.
  - Denvercoder9 6y ago
    They got Al Capone on tax fraud.

garmaine 6y ago

In the US for example, there's an actual field in your 1040 tax return for entering income from otherwise undeclared illegal businesses. Putting your drug or extortion money there and paying taxes is not admitting guilt and can't be used against you IIRC.

jobigoud 6y ago
What does one gain by doing this? Is there a particular incentive apart from one's own principles?
- icelancer 6y ago
  Tax fraud is usually much more painful to suffer from instead of a simple drug charge or illegal gambling charge. If you get nicked on drug charges there will be parallel reconstruction to get you on tax fraud despite this "not happening" between US government branches.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    I think you have it backwards. If you commit tax fraud, you will be prosecuted. And the FBI will work with the IRS to do this. But, supposedly, putting a non-zero value in the "illegal income" field of the 1040 (which ISN'T fraud) both (1) can't be used as evidence against you in court, and (2) isn't reported by default to the IRS to the FBI or other law enforcement agencies, so you don't end up on any watch lists. Of course you gotta take their word for part (2), but it is their incentive to get every tax dollar regardless of source.
    - icelancer 6y ago
      No sorry, I agree with you. I mean if you don't declare your income THEN you get busted on the illegal activity, you are guaranteed to get busted twice.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        Ah I misunderstood, sorry.
- Denvercoder9 6y ago
  They got Al Capone on tax fraud.