3 ms·

I don't think there's an answer to this. It's easy to start with drug dealing and go to "sure, let them report income and it's prosecutor's problem to prosecute

I don't think there's an answer to this. It's easy to start with drug dealing and go to "sure, let them report income and it's prosecutor's problem to prosecute that". But jump to horrific crime X, say murdering people and harvesting their organs. Should someone able to partially launder their profit from doing this? I'd prefer that drugs use (and all victimless crimes) be legal and that those who do actual bad things have a hard time profiting from those bad things.

szhu 6y ago
In the US, separation of powers is an important concept. I think the reasoning is that if you give parts of the government extra authority beyond what's necessary for them to do their jobs, the damage due to some of them abusing that power in the name of the public good outweighs whatever extra advantage they have in actually serving the public good. I don't know if this is true in every situation, but the IRS at least seems like an entity we should be wary about giving additional power to, since it already receives so much private personal information about literally everyone in the US.