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"This suggests that the department reclassified all of FTX’s contractors to full-time employees in order to arrive at such a large tax payroll-related tax claim

"This suggests that the department reclassified all of FTX’s contractors to full-time employees in order to arrive at such a large tax payroll-related tax claim." Genius. Why not, free money. Unless of course you don't think government agencies should play fast and loose with their enforcement based on the likelihood of the defending party to successfully resist.

justapassenger 3y ago
Your argument being what? Government shouldn't enforce laws, especially when it comes to one of the biggest scams of the century?
- phone8675309 3y ago
  Most likely their argument is "but this will keep my from recouping the money I had in FTX when it went bust because I'm in the class of people who are last to get paid out"
- Illniyar 3y ago
  That a government agency shouldn't knowingly lie to try and get a piece of the pie. They shouldn't artificially inflate a tax bill so that they can have more leverage. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that that tax bill isn't real, it's obviously a negotiation tactic to try and get a larger cut. I don't think that's something that a government agency should do, even if the target is a giant fraud. 44B$ is more then FTX's ever had in assets, it's definitely more then they had in revenue and more then they probably ever paid employees. And taxes should be a fraction of that on top of what they probably did pay.
deleted 3y ago
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outside1234 3y ago
It's not free money. They stole the money from us, the actual taxpayers.
- ummonk 3y ago
  They stole it from their employees who had to pay tax on their income themselves, no?
advisedwang 3y ago
Sounds like the IRS is just doing the reverse of the bullshit companies do classifying people as "contractors" to avoid regulations.
garbagecoder 3y ago
Found the guy who cuts corners on his payroll.
aftbit 3y ago
It's a sign of the times that I can't tell if this is a /s. I think many on this board would support the IRS cracking down on crypto companies even if they do so in an extralegal manner. I am not one of them fwiw.
dboreham 3y ago
IRS just wants the payroll tax to be paid by someone, and don't really have a dog in the FT vs contractor question. Ordinarily contractors end up paying it, making IRS happy. So this suggests they did not.
kvetching 3y ago
Okay, now the government is just getting greedy. Taxes are the biggest scam in 2023 as our leaders don't respect us enough to create a balanced budget.
Scoundreller 3y ago
Would this mean the employees have to suddenly pay up their unpaid employee-contribution side of things like social security/FICA?
jerf 3y ago
I'm definitely anti-IRS at this point in most ways, but... let's be honest, this is FTX we're talking about. Their so-called "balance sheet" for their multi-billion dollar operation was an approximately one-screen-large Excel file at a level of detail that would have embarrassed your local plumbing shop. Even through my anti-IRS biases I have no problem whatsoever believing that FTX went well beyond playing "fast and loose" with tax laws to outright tax fraud. I doubt this is even the end of their troubles, which will more likely end simply by the matter becoming moot rather than investigations coming to their end. FTX was so badly run that it isn't even suitable as a business school case study. The questions it really raises is how they got as far as they did at that scale without ramming into one legal wall or another even sooner, and I don't even mean exotic cryptocurrency laws, I mean just plain ol' corporate laws that everyone else faces. How much you want to bet they weren't correctly an Equal Opportunity Employer, or managed to have non-trivial OSHA violations, or... just pick your agency, really.
- lazide 3y ago
  All of those laws require someone to complain or report a problem to the right person in the agencies. All the people who would have done so didn’t want to upset the ‘getting rich’ Apple cart.
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justapassenger 3y ago

Your argument being what? Government shouldn't enforce laws, especially when it comes to one of the biggest scams of the century?

phone8675309 3y ago
Most likely their argument is "but this will keep my from recouping the money I had in FTX when it went bust because I'm in the class of people who are last to get paid out"
Illniyar 3y ago
That a government agency shouldn't knowingly lie to try and get a piece of the pie. They shouldn't artificially inflate a tax bill so that they can have more leverage. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that that tax bill isn't real, it's obviously a negotiation tactic to try and get a larger cut. I don't think that's something that a government agency should do, even if the target is a giant fraud. 44B$ is more then FTX's ever had in assets, it's definitely more then they had in revenue and more then they probably ever paid employees. And taxes should be a fraction of that on top of what they probably did pay.

deleted 3y ago

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outside1234 3y ago

It's not free money. They stole the money from us, the actual taxpayers.

ummonk 3y ago
They stole it from their employees who had to pay tax on their income themselves, no?

advisedwang 3y ago

Sounds like the IRS is just doing the reverse of the bullshit companies do classifying people as "contractors" to avoid regulations.

garbagecoder 3y ago

Found the guy who cuts corners on his payroll.

aftbit 3y ago

It's a sign of the times that I can't tell if this is a /s. I think many on this board would support the IRS cracking down on crypto companies even if they do so in an extralegal manner. I am not one of them fwiw.

dboreham 3y ago

IRS just wants the payroll tax to be paid by someone, and don't really have a dog in the FT vs contractor question. Ordinarily contractors end up paying it, making IRS happy. So this suggests they did not.

kvetching 3y ago

Okay, now the government is just getting greedy. Taxes are the biggest scam in 2023 as our leaders don't respect us enough to create a balanced budget.

Scoundreller 3y ago

Would this mean the employees have to suddenly pay up their unpaid employee-contribution side of things like social security/FICA?

jerf 3y ago

I'm definitely anti-IRS at this point in most ways, but... let's be honest, this is FTX we're talking about. Their so-called "balance sheet" for their multi-billion dollar operation was an approximately one-screen-large Excel file at a level of detail that would have embarrassed your local plumbing shop. Even through my anti-IRS biases I have no problem whatsoever believing that FTX went well beyond playing "fast and loose" with tax laws to outright tax fraud. I doubt this is even the end of their troubles, which will more likely end simply by the matter becoming moot rather than investigations coming to their end. FTX was so badly run that it isn't even suitable as a business school case study. The questions it really raises is how they got as far as they did at that scale without ramming into one legal wall or another even sooner, and I don't even mean exotic cryptocurrency laws, I mean just plain ol' corporate laws that everyone else faces. How much you want to bet they weren't correctly an Equal Opportunity Employer, or managed to have non-trivial OSHA violations, or... just pick your agency, really.

lazide 3y ago
All of those laws require someone to complain or report a problem to the right person in the agencies. All the people who would have done so didn’t want to upset the ‘getting rich’ Apple cart.

deleted 3y ago

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