Guest Post: To The US Govt, Failure To Disclose Foreign Accounts Is Worse Than Child Porn

Submitted by Simon Black of SovereignMan blog,

Jacques Wajsfelner of Weston, Massachusetts is a criminal mastermind. Big time. Like Lex Luthor. But rest easy, ladies and gentlemen, for this nefarious villain is about to face some serious jail time thanks to the courageous work of US government agents.

You see, Mr. Wajsfelner was finally caught and convicted of a most heinous crime: failing to disclose his foreign bank account to the US government. Note-- he was not convicted of tax evasion. He was not convicted of failing to file or pay taxes. His crime was not filing the annual Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).

Because of his failure to disclose his foreign bank account, Wajsfelner is now looking at FIVE YEARS behind bars in a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit.

Oh, one more thing-- Wajsfelner is 83 years old. He was born in Germany during the global depression and rise of Adolf Hitler. The Wajsfelner family soon fled the Nazi regime and made its way to the United States. It was a different world back then.

Sentencing guidelines suggest that Wajsfelner will get some combination of jail time and supervised release to the tune of several years.

Then there's Eric Higgins of Port Huron, Michigan, who was recently busted for major possession of child pornography and engaging in sexually explicit conversations with juveniles online. He was given 20 months. Oh... and Mr. Higgins was a US Customs & Border Patrol agent.

Or Melford Christmas, a US immigration officer from New York, who was given 18 months for demanding and accepting bribes to speed along US citizenship applications of foreign nationals.

Or Ricardo Cordero, another US Customs & Border Patrol officer who was given 27-months for personally smuggling 30 Mexican nationals into the United States, and assisting another smuggler to bring 15 Mexican nationals across the border. This genius even had the smuggler testify as a character witness at his divorce proceeding!

Or Jon Corzine, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and member of the political elite, who presided over one of the largest plunders in the financial system ever seen during the recent MF Global collapse. He walks the streets freely to this day.

It seems pretty clear where the US government stands: the victimless crime of failing to report a foreign bank account is far more egregious than, say, possession of child pornography, engaging with minors in online sex chat, bribery, extortion, fraud, and abuse of official power.

This is what justice means in the Land of the Free today. Have you hit your breaking point yet?

As a parting note, I just want to remind readers once again that US taxpayers with foreign financial accounts are obliged to file form TDF 90-22.1 to the Department of Treasury each year by June 30th, as well as file IRS form 8938 and 1040 schedule B with your normal tax return each year.

It should be clear by now that failing to file is not an option. If you are delinquent in filing from past years, it's much better to catch up and file late than to not file at all.

Comments

[blunderdog]

Well, I don't have cable or satellite, and I've never had any interest in kids or violent porn.  To be honest, as I've grown older, my interest in porn has diminished considerably.  These days, I get all the action I can use...

Even so, I don't believe you're talking about kiddie porn.  They're likely legal-aged "performers" made up to look young.

But uh...what does that have to do with anything?  I got the impression that Black was implying that the kiddie-porn owner described wasn't punished severely enough. 

I can't think of any reason to punish him AT ALL.

Then again, I take that whole "liberty" concept pretty seriously.  The idea that *any* government has legitimate authority over what sort of *images* I might want to look at strikes me as truly insane.  We all have our preferred forms of entertainment, and as long as it is ONLY entertainment, I'd say it no one's business but our own.

[MeelionDollerBogus]

Sadly the world does not work that way. The more encouragement serial killers have to believe their desires are normal, the more kiddie diddlers have encouragement (child porn they didn't make) to think it's normal, the more they'll try to MAKE it themselves, to make the big times. Big dreamers, those fuckups. We can't tolerate any of it.

[Oldwood]

Laws are easily enforcible when they are generally thought to be fair. A base moral code directs our actions rather than fear of prosecution. When laws become unfair, or at least perceived to be so by most, compliance comes almost entirely from fear of prosecution. Given the financial nature of tax law, with increased perceived unfairness and people's natural tendency to defy it, the costs of enforcement increases and measures become more drastic, feeding its own failure. The constant threat of increased taxes, regardless of income bracket, to pay for waste and corruption will doom the system to collapse. We are all Greeks now!

[blunderdog]

Bang on.  That's why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about GOVERNMENT is such a waste of energy.

Don't get pissed, just don't COMPLY.

[boiltherich]

Green arrow for Oldwood, but I want to add that in the case of taxes the unfairness is compounded as are the taxes themselves by those that seek to avoid paying their share, for every dollar hidden in Swiss accounts by the rich we middle and lower classes have to pay one dollar more. If one does not like a tax then one has the right to petition redress of that grievance, but the idea one does not have to comply with laws they deem unfair like tax laws is not going to fly in any nation on the planet. By the way, I know redress is a joke these days if you are not at least as rich as a Romney, and that is something we have to get together to fix, because you can't fix it by yourself and neither can a political party, it is going to take all of us, so it is up to the right to decide if they want to keep telling people how they can and can't conduct their private lives and thus refuse to fix the real problems with our government, because if they do not live and let live there will be no getting together and we will have this status quo till the bitter end of the country, which is weeks away from my point of view. And I would rather see it go the way of Rome than to struggle to fix a republic I loved so well than to submit to the tyranny of the right.

[mkkby]

Comply with all laws to protect yourself, but STARVE THE BEAST.  Stop using credit, live as frugally as possible, get out of large banks, store your savings in physical gold. 

If we did this, tax revenue would plunge and system reset would happen much faster.

[eaglefalcon]

There's a go-around, a bag of gold coins sunk to the bottom of a foreign lake due to a tragic boat accident needs not to be reported to the dept of treasury. Swiss banks pay negative interest anyways, so why not deposit your non-perishable money in a hole on the ground

[MeelionDollerBogus]

Boating accidents, bitchez