GUWonder

That Internet link provided by the OP's lawyer does not cover everything.

I'm not talking just about the kind of people you mention in the first part of your last sentence above, many of whom may be criminals, loony tunes or both. I am talking about other kinds of people, as sometimes the IRS uses the CBP to try to find people whom it thinks may owe taxes but eventually acknowledges don't have any unpaid taxes due and have even been paying taxes.

There are children of some diplomats, for example, who were born in the US to accredited diplomats at the time of birth and later hounded by the IRS -- including by way of the CBP -- despite not being US citizens. Why? Because they were issued a SSA number and/or had paid taxes not even due until they realized they weren't US citizens. And rather frequently at that point it's too late to get the IRS to refund all the taxes paid that were not due. There are other examples too, including of actual US citizens. Unfortunately the IRS isn't perfect and sometimes messes up things, even basic things like properly sending correspondence to the addresses provided to the IRS by US persons abroad. Some of the US's MLA requests on individual tax matters have had some very interesting turns when dealing with US persons abroad.

And the OP has been paying the IRS.

Blogndog

Yes, I have unpaid taxes, but I not evaded them. The tax debt is based on my returns, and it was I who initiated contact with the IRS to make arrangements to settle the debt. I upheld my side of the arrangement for over 2 years, gradually but steadily reducing the amount outstanding, before some moron at the IRS decided to seize funds in my US account, which had been put there for the express purpose of making a further payment. I brought in my lawyers at that point, and with their help, got the funds unfrozen and subsequently settled what was according to my lawyers 87% of the outstanding amount. The remaining amount due is not undisputed, and we submitted written arguments concerning the IRS view on the matter. The IRS is currently reviewing our submission and has indicated we should expect a response in March. But then they decided to start harassing me, although the ball is in their court. So while I may ultimately be determined to have some small unpaid liability, it's therefore misleading at best to describe me as a "tax non-payer," which I believe I explained in detail in my original post. Some people just seem to want to believe the Federal government never does anything wrong.

cestmoi123

Apologies then for being unclear - I didn't mean, by referring to the OP as a "tax non-payer," to associate him/her with the loony tunes tax "protestors," who are just idiots.* I was simply describing him as someone who hasn't paid all taxes due.


*Often, they're idiotic enough that they sincerely believe they aren't obliged to pay taxes for some crazy reason, in which case they aren't guilty of criminal tax evasion, since that requires intent.

Blogndog

W-2s aren't relevant here. A prostitute, for example, is typically self employed and does not have any W-2 income. Any of her customers that did not report payments to her in excess of 600 dollars annually could potentially be liable for not filing a 1099, but that's not the prostitute's fault. Yes, Schedule C requires you to categorise the type of business you are in, but if there is no such appropriate category, she hasn't broken any tax laws by using the code for "other personal services" or something similar on her Schedule C, but there is nothing in the tax code obliging her to explicitly describe her work as "prostitute". And not using whatever the IRS might think is the correct industry code on Schedule C is by no means a "tax crime," unless it could be demonstrated ther was some intent to decieve by intetionally using the wrong code. Even if she used, for example, the code for "constuction" or something like that, but nonetheless accurately reported her income, there would little basis for claiming fraud. And the IRS can't go combing through returns looking for young women reporting high incomes and turn that list over to law enforcement as potential prostitutes, or for law enforcement to try to get a judge to issue a search warrant that might yield evidence of her activities solely on the basis of her tax return. And again, if law enforcement independently established that she was engaging in prostitution, they could bust her for that, but they couldn't prosecute for tax fraud on top of that.

I_Can_Fly_US_Airways

In the English langauge to describe my feelings on this subject. With that said, this is another reason I choose to only visit the United States when absolutely necessary!

A Very Happy Ex Patriot living outside of Uncle Sam's umbrella (-:

jphripjah

That's really interesting. Do you think they were there specifically waiting for you, or do you think it was one of their occasional jetway checks for undeclared currency? Can I ask where the flight was headed? Obviously if youd rather not say, no problem.

Also, did they let you on the plane answering "consultant" and the "journey is the destination" or did they require a lot more substantive information?

At the conclusion of my silly Afghanistan interaction with them, one agent warned me that they might start stopping me when leaving the country in the future due to my lack of cooperation, but this hasn't happened yet.

I suspect they would have stopped you from boarding that plane to be petty, but then you could have gotten on the next one, which is obviously a major inconvenience.

Blogndog

We were flying to Panama (PTY). They were interrogating everyone. Mostly seemed interested in currency, as that was the first question they were asking everyone. And I did answer that question voluntarily as that question is relevant to their mission.

However, I initiallyanswered the question inaccurately, although unintentionally. I told him I had some dollars and some euro, which is what I had in my wallet. I forgot, however that I carry around a ziploc bag stuffed full of about 30 different currencies -- money left over from travels. Some of it is fairly valuable i.e., there about 300 GBP, a couple hundred CAD, may 30000 JPY, etc. The bulk of it however is things like Egyptian pounds and Honduran lempira, which make a thick stack of notes but probably aren't worth 20 bucks. So I fortunately corrected myself. But it shows why you really shouldn't answer any questions -- I easily could have failed to remember that bag of cash, and they easily could have searched and found it, and charged me with perjury. If you don't answer, there's no way to bring up a perjury charge. Good example of why the "if you have nothing to hide..." argument for co-operating with law enforcement is fallacious.

Section 107

technically? Maybe. But in practice - not at all likely. When they find someone in possession of undeclared currency (above the $10k threshold in particular) CBP gives several opportunities for the person to amend his/her declaration. Amending is not perjury.

GUWonder

Amending improperly may be used to make an accusation about the declaration being a form of perjury. And as we know perjury and obstruction of justice type charges are the crutches that law enforcement and prosecutors use to intimidate and coerce targets/defendants.

Section 107

This from a CBP Field Inspectors Manual:

41.4 Liaison with Other Federal Agencies.

Many agencies which are not FIS agencies have an interest in activities at ports-of-entry. Virtually all Intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels have a need to interact with managers at ports-of-entry. Frequently, there are requests to post local lookouts or to assist in other law enforcement functions. Similarly, INS is dependent on other agencies to assist in carrying out its mission. Providing this type of assistance whenever possible is a critical part of the inspector’s job.

Possibly the most important and frequently relied upon liaison for INS inspectors is with overseas Department of State visa issuing posts. A complete list of DOS contacts, with their telephone and fax numbers is listed in Appendix 41-1.

freeflyer

When returning to my homeland of Canada, I've responded to border officers by politely saying, "Oh, I don't answer personal questions like that." I know and they know that they have to let me back into my country. And that they can't compel me to answer questions that I don't want to.

One time a guy played along and asked what kinds of questions I would be willing to answer. I said questions about my luggage and we were quickly done.

jphripjah

Well, just to clarfiy, we're not talking about perjury here - a false statement under oath.

We're talking about the separate crime of false statements under 18 USC 1001.

I agree that if you tell the agents you only have 5000 dollars and then correct that before they find the $15,000 you're really carrying and before they have you sign a written pledge that you are only carrying $5,000, then yes, they charge you with a crime

But they certainly could. The statute prohibits any false statement, even if you later tell the truth after making the false statement. The reason why they may ask someone they suspect of cash smuggling to sign a declaration before searching them isn't because they have to, it's because it makes their case stronger. People who falsely sign those forms are not being smart, the forms always precede a search for the cash.

Also, don't underestimate the willingness that a petty or vengeful CBP officer might have to arrest you for making a false statement on a minor matter, even if you merely misspoke, even if genuinely had no intent to lie or deceive anyone.

Consider what happened to a Saudi national named Hussain Al Khawahir back in 2013, shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing. He flew to the US to visit his nephew and was questioned by CBP about why he had a pressure cooker in his luggage.

He first said he was bringing it for his nephew because you couldn't buy them in America. He then clarified that to say that the one his nephew was able to buy in America was poor quality and it broke. He was charged with the felony crime of making false statements for that. Really. He was detained for a month before the charge was dropped.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/check...re-cooker.html

Blogndog

Yes, whilst the statement by Section107 that it is "not likely" that they will prosecute for a mis-statement, the fact is that they will if they are looking for some other reason to pressure you.

As I always carry this bag of mixed currency (and don't usually forget that it is there -- I think I was unprepared to be interrogated on exiting the country) my response to the currency question is always "I don't know" -- because I do not. Several times I've showed them the bag and they've asked me "how much is there?"

"I don't know"
"How much do you think is there?"
"How much do YOU think is there?"
"Is it over 10000 dollars?"
"I don't know"

As I said, it must be at least 40 different currencies. They've gotten insistent on me providing a number on several occaisions, and my response has been:

1) I don't know how many currencies are there, what value is there in each currency, what the current exchange rate is, or even what rate I should use to convert
2) If you insist, we can count it all out, currency by currency
3) then we can go on-line and check current exchange rates for each one, and I need to know what rate you want me to use for the conversion (i.e., interbank rate, retail buy rate, retail sell rate, etc.)
4) Even if we do all that, by the time we finish, the rate for the currency we started with has probably changed, so whilst I would be willing to declare that the total value is something "less than x", I'm not going to declare a specific value.

Then they usually fall back on the question they SHOULD have asked in the first place -- not "how much are you carrying?" but "are you carrying over 10000 dollars?" as there is no requirement to declare if you are carrying less. But my truthful answer is still "I don't know".



Reminds me that I met a guy yesterday that doesn't know where he was born. He apparently was orphaned and brought to Canada by adoptive parents as an infant and they never knew where he came from. He has a Canadian passport but certainly doesn't look "Canadian". I can just imagine that if he tried to visit the USA how CBP would treat him if he truthfully answered "I don't know" to the question about where he was born.

GUWonder

"foundlings" under 5 years of age in the US may get US citizenship too when they have been found with birth circumstances unknown. I just can't recall encountering a US passport of a person who was a US citizen by way of being a "foundling" in the US, but I'm curious what they put down for place of birth in the passport.

Foundlings can lose US citizenship if found to be born under circumstances that made them ineligible for citizenship but only if those circumstances are determined before foundling turns 21. So a US foundling can't escape US tax related requirements if they suddenly realize at age 23 that they were not born US citizens and would have been better off being a non-US person.

Often1

You are wrong. But, it's not material to this thread and an endless argument.

All comes back to the fact that you owe the USG money and the USG is perfectly entitled to and ought to use its resources to assure that you don't have assets to pay that debt which you haven't disclosed (given that you've acknowledged the debt and are in negotiations for a payment plan).

What you don't pay means: increased debt, or higher taxes, or lower services for the rest.