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That's cool as hell, but also it seems weird that his biggest fear is merely being exposed and not able to do it no more. You'd think he'd maybe be afraid of a

That's cool as hell, but also it seems weird that his biggest fear is merely being exposed and not able to do it no more. You'd think he'd maybe be afraid of a more...extralegal ending giving the wake of wealthy ruthless people he's Richard Overing

alwa 2y ago
It does seem like an awful lot of risk to take on personally, without institutional cover. Mess with a cop and you’ll feel the full weight of the justice system, mess with this guy and… I guess he knows a lot of lawyers? I feel like there was a lot left unsaid in this account, and rightfully so. There’s a conspicuous void in the shape of his recording techniques (or lack thereof), for example; ditto the specifics of the types of malfeasance he goes after. And while I’m all for maintaining honest norms, it did sound a little bit like he was trying actively to bait his mark into producing fraudulent misrepresentations. That feels a little different from the conventional “whistleblower” notion, of a cog in the machine noticing something wrong and standing up for what’s right. Something a little closer to vigilantism. But who knows. It’s cool that he was willing even to share this much visibility.
- unyttigfjelltol 2y ago
  > it did sound a little bit like he was trying actively to bait his mark into producing fraudulent misrepresentations Being a whistleblower only works well if you uncover a scheme that the target already has deployed to victimize other people (or the government). Entrapment isn't an effective tactic.
- rectang 2y ago
  The vigilantism aspect is a guilty pleasure when reading this — with the IRS being deliberately defunded to facilitate tax cheating I read about this guy and hear in my head "this is the hero we need".
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    The IRS vilification is gross. I had a relative who was a revenue agent with a couple of highly specialized areas of expertise. When he started in the mid-80s, his unit had about 250 agents nationally. When he retired circa 2010, there was 4. He retired earlier than he wanted because the travel was difficult and he was developing some health issues. The cases they prosecuted were people cheating society out of hundreds of millions, or in one case, billions of taxes. He characterized the scope of what wasn’t even looked at as 15k cases annually where at least $10M of taxes were notn paid. They didn’t even bother to think about anything less than $100M. We should be vilifying the people doing this. Some of these crooks avoid taxes equivalent to 10,000 or more well paid professional like myself and my colleagues. You also have issues with some cases where the tradition of allowing Senators to nominate US Attorneys and hyper-political judges means that certain crimes are effectively not crimes in certain districts.
    - photonthug 2y ago
      You explained yourself the same problem that you’re trying to dismiss. The vilification will continue until the emphasis is placed where it needs to be, ie going after big fish instead of little ones, regardless of which fish are easy targets and easy wins for enforcement quotas, and regardless of whether the enforcement team is 4 people or 4000.
      - rectang 2y ago
        I'm confused. It seems like "They didn’t even bother to think about anything less than $100M" describes "going after big fish instead of little ones".
        photonthug 2y ago
        Yeah but then it’s explained why catching the big fish is hard, and a plea for sympathy due to staff cuts. That won’t work until/unless tax enforcement overall shifts from disproportionately affecting the poor to disproportionately affecting the rich, regardless of some special team of four people that targets big fish. The situation that we actually have is like if a one stoplight town is setting a speed trap because they need revenue.. but they target only old broken minivans going 5mph over, because they know corporate trucks and private red sports cars going 20 over the limit are more likely to have lawyers that buck the speeding ticket, and cost the town revenue instead of collecting it. Is adding more cops to pull over more old minivans really going to help the town buy a public park, or stop sports cars from speeding? It’s not only unfair, but also completely ineffective. Staffing/funding is always going to be a bullshit complaint because structurally, enforcement quotas and complex compliance requirements are always going to tend to create a preference for bureaucracies to punch down at soft targets. Similar to how militarizing police doesn’t actually help fix problems with law enforcement, adding additional “support” (ie weapons) for other institutions that have fundamentally broken politics/policies is not a good idea.

alwa 2y ago

It does seem like an awful lot of risk to take on personally, without institutional cover. Mess with a cop and you’ll feel the full weight of the justice system, mess with this guy and… I guess he knows a lot of lawyers? I feel like there was a lot left unsaid in this account, and rightfully so. There’s a conspicuous void in the shape of his recording techniques (or lack thereof), for example; ditto the specifics of the types of malfeasance he goes after. And while I’m all for maintaining honest norms, it did sound a little bit like he was trying actively to bait his mark into producing fraudulent misrepresentations. That feels a little different from the conventional “whistleblower” notion, of a cog in the machine noticing something wrong and standing up for what’s right. Something a little closer to vigilantism. But who knows. It’s cool that he was willing even to share this much visibility.

unyttigfjelltol 2y ago
> it did sound a little bit like he was trying actively to bait his mark into producing fraudulent misrepresentations Being a whistleblower only works well if you uncover a scheme that the target already has deployed to victimize other people (or the government). Entrapment isn't an effective tactic.
rectang 2y ago
The vigilantism aspect is a guilty pleasure when reading this — with the IRS being deliberately defunded to facilitate tax cheating I read about this guy and hear in my head "this is the hero we need".
- Spooky23 2y ago
  The IRS vilification is gross. I had a relative who was a revenue agent with a couple of highly specialized areas of expertise. When he started in the mid-80s, his unit had about 250 agents nationally. When he retired circa 2010, there was 4. He retired earlier than he wanted because the travel was difficult and he was developing some health issues. The cases they prosecuted were people cheating society out of hundreds of millions, or in one case, billions of taxes. He characterized the scope of what wasn’t even looked at as 15k cases annually where at least $10M of taxes were notn paid. They didn’t even bother to think about anything less than $100M. We should be vilifying the people doing this. Some of these crooks avoid taxes equivalent to 10,000 or more well paid professional like myself and my colleagues. You also have issues with some cases where the tradition of allowing Senators to nominate US Attorneys and hyper-political judges means that certain crimes are effectively not crimes in certain districts.
  - photonthug 2y ago
    You explained yourself the same problem that you’re trying to dismiss. The vilification will continue until the emphasis is placed where it needs to be, ie going after big fish instead of little ones, regardless of which fish are easy targets and easy wins for enforcement quotas, and regardless of whether the enforcement team is 4 people or 4000.
    - rectang 2y ago
      I'm confused. It seems like "They didn’t even bother to think about anything less than $100M" describes "going after big fish instead of little ones".
      - photonthug 2y ago
        Yeah but then it’s explained why catching the big fish is hard, and a plea for sympathy due to staff cuts. That won’t work until/unless tax enforcement overall shifts from disproportionately affecting the poor to disproportionately affecting the rich, regardless of some special team of four people that targets big fish. The situation that we actually have is like if a one stoplight town is setting a speed trap because they need revenue.. but they target only old broken minivans going 5mph over, because they know corporate trucks and private red sports cars going 20 over the limit are more likely to have lawyers that buck the speeding ticket, and cost the town revenue instead of collecting it. Is adding more cops to pull over more old minivans really going to help the town buy a public park, or stop sports cars from speeding? It’s not only unfair, but also completely ineffective. Staffing/funding is always going to be a bullshit complaint because structurally, enforcement quotas and complex compliance requirements are always going to tend to create a preference for bureaucracies to punch down at soft targets. Similar to how militarizing police doesn’t actually help fix problems with law enforcement, adding additional “support” (ie weapons) for other institutions that have fundamentally broken politics/policies is not a good idea.