4 ms·

Has ProPublica actually shown anyone to have broken the law in these articles? If not, then they are just trying to stoke the fires of class warfare.

llbeansandrice 5y ago
Whether or not it's legal isn't the point of the article though. It even highlights how they're using recent changes in the tax code to claim depreciation on assets that either don't actually depreciate or the value is highly subjective. It's a lot more than just "Oh boo boo is us our asset lost value last year so now we don't have to pay taxes".
- kristjansson 5y ago
  Its not that its lost value, its when a capital expense is recognized as an operating expense... Also, capital gains are assessed relative to the depreciated price of the asset, so if there is a wild divergence between that and market value, the owner will pay a huge tax bill on sale.
burkaman 5y ago
Legal behavior is often worth writing about. I read these stories as reporting on class warfare, not stoking it.
ianhawes 5y ago
No. This is the problem with the post-Wikileaks concept of "leaked documents". By default, the reader is lead to believe that by a document being leaked it demonstrates something nefarious or shadowy. We saw this most notably with the Panama Papers and the Podesta emails. No one was directly prosecuted as a result of evidence derived from the wholesale publishing of the material. In the case of Podesta, it revealed absolutely nothing. So much so that a certain group of people became obsessed with innocuous messages about pizza. The ProPublica IRS hack, in my opinion, is doing nothing for journalism ethics.
- kristofferR 5y ago
  This IRS leak clearly demonstrates something nefarious or shadowy. Nefarious things like using appreciating sports teams for claiming depreciation can be totally legal. Billions of tax dollars have been recovered due to the Panama Papers alone [1]. The Podesta emails were BS, but everyone in the know always have agreed on that. How you can claim that the ProPublica IRS leak isn't good journalism is unclear to me. In the few articles they've published, they've clearly exposed the nefarious practice of legal tax avoidance using specific leaked information that wasn't documented or widely known before. [1] https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/panama-papers-helps-recover-more-than-1-2-billion-around-the-world/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/panama-pap...
- newfriend 5y ago
  > became obsessed with innocuous messages about pizza. Totally innocuous. I mean, who doesn't write vague messages about pizza and pasta? Who doesn't collect art depicting stylized child abuse? Who isn't friends with convicted child molesters? It's all merely a coincidence. Of course it's impossible to get direct prosecution from any leaks of vague messages. That doesn't mean they aren't nefarious or shadowy. Here's another totally innocuous message from a high-level "waste-management consultant" in New Jersey: "Hey Paulie, our friend with the hair needs to go".
0goel0 5y ago
If we as a society never questioned the validity of laws, we'd still be ruled by kings.
danso 5y ago
ProPublica hasn't asserted illegality — or, at least, that's not the main focus of their stories so far? Genuine, partly-rhetorical: Which of the PRISM stories that came out after the Snowden revelations asserted and proved illegality? IIRC, no one from the government nor any of the C-suite tech executives who secretly approved the surveillance were charged or convicted with anything. Looking at the lengthy Wikipedia article [0], I see that foreign governments said "nightmarish if true". James Clapper and President Obama himself acknowledged the existence of the program and defended it as passionately and robustly as any of the rich people defending their tax situations. Should Snowden/Greenwald/Guardian/WaPo held off on publishing the PRISM revelations until they had proof of criminality in hand? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#Media_disclosure_of_PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#M...

llbeansandrice 5y ago

Whether or not it's legal isn't the point of the article though. It even highlights how they're using recent changes in the tax code to claim depreciation on assets that either don't actually depreciate or the value is highly subjective. It's a lot more than just "Oh boo boo is us our asset lost value last year so now we don't have to pay taxes".

kristjansson 5y ago
Its not that its lost value, its when a capital expense is recognized as an operating expense... Also, capital gains are assessed relative to the depreciated price of the asset, so if there is a wild divergence between that and market value, the owner will pay a huge tax bill on sale.

burkaman 5y ago

Legal behavior is often worth writing about. I read these stories as reporting on class warfare, not stoking it.

ianhawes 5y ago

No. This is the problem with the post-Wikileaks concept of "leaked documents". By default, the reader is lead to believe that by a document being leaked it demonstrates something nefarious or shadowy. We saw this most notably with the Panama Papers and the Podesta emails. No one was directly prosecuted as a result of evidence derived from the wholesale publishing of the material. In the case of Podesta, it revealed absolutely nothing. So much so that a certain group of people became obsessed with innocuous messages about pizza. The ProPublica IRS hack, in my opinion, is doing nothing for journalism ethics.

kristofferR 5y ago
This IRS leak clearly demonstrates something nefarious or shadowy. Nefarious things like using appreciating sports teams for claiming depreciation can be totally legal. Billions of tax dollars have been recovered due to the Panama Papers alone [1]. The Podesta emails were BS, but everyone in the know always have agreed on that. How you can claim that the ProPublica IRS leak isn't good journalism is unclear to me. In the few articles they've published, they've clearly exposed the nefarious practice of legal tax avoidance using specific leaked information that wasn't documented or widely known before. [1] https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/panama-papers-helps-recover-more-than-1-2-billion-around-the-world/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/panama-pap...
newfriend 5y ago
> became obsessed with innocuous messages about pizza. Totally innocuous. I mean, who doesn't write vague messages about pizza and pasta? Who doesn't collect art depicting stylized child abuse? Who isn't friends with convicted child molesters? It's all merely a coincidence. Of course it's impossible to get direct prosecution from any leaks of vague messages. That doesn't mean they aren't nefarious or shadowy. Here's another totally innocuous message from a high-level "waste-management consultant" in New Jersey: "Hey Paulie, our friend with the hair needs to go".

0goel0 5y ago

If we as a society never questioned the validity of laws, we'd still be ruled by kings.

danso 5y ago

ProPublica hasn't asserted illegality — or, at least, that's not the main focus of their stories so far? Genuine, partly-rhetorical: Which of the PRISM stories that came out after the Snowden revelations asserted and proved illegality? IIRC, no one from the government nor any of the C-suite tech executives who secretly approved the surveillance were charged or convicted with anything. Looking at the lengthy Wikipedia article [0], I see that foreign governments said "nightmarish if true". James Clapper and President Obama himself acknowledged the existence of the program and defended it as passionately and robustly as any of the rich people defending their tax situations. Should Snowden/Greenwald/Guardian/WaPo held off on publishing the PRISM revelations until they had proof of criminality in hand? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#Media_disclosure_of_PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#M...