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Friday, January 5th, 2007Friday, January 5th, 2007

If You Steal, The IRS Wants A Cut

by Shawn @ 3:52 pm · filed under Weird Stuff, Law

This is hilarious... who in the hell comes up with this crap? Do they really think some thief is going to report it as "Other Income"? And even if they did (which would be funny), wouldn't the government sort of be an accomplice since they are benefiting from criminal acts? It almost makes me want to go out and steal a pack of gum just so I can put something in the stolen property section of my tax return. haha

This is clip from page 88 of the IRS handbook for individuals (PDF version here).

So what do you learn from this? If you steal a car, return it before December 31 so you don't owe taxes on it! haha

Alternately, treat it as "borrowed property without the owner's permission", but that's a little more grey area and might not fall under the IRS' safe harbor guidelines.

26 Responses to “If You Steal, The IRS Wants A Cut”

  1. CK Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 4:40 pm

    hahah that’s hilarious. what a weird thing to put. I wonder how many ppl reviewed this section of the handbook before publication and thought it was something important to notate. wait… why are you reading the IRS handbook? Isn’t it happy hour time? :-)

  2. Bulbboy Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 6:44 pm

    Maybe it’s entrapment, luring in really stupid burglars?

  3. monks Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

    that is awesome

    we are going go cart racing now

  4. Nicky Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 8:48 pm

    wow person that wrote/created that must have been really smart! hahaha

  5. Mistake Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 9:02 am

    Ha-ha! Very funny. IRS is extremely smart.

  6. Johan Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

    LOL nice find. Reminds me of a news item in a paper a few years back about burglars who raided a house in Sao Paolo. They nicked a hifi set and came back 2 days later to ask for the receipts since they had a hard time selling it.

  7. ViciousSummer Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 5:16 pm

    They probably threw that in there so they can pin an additional charge (tax evasion) on convicted theives. So ridiculous….

  8. Johann Erickson Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 6:14 pm

    I like the “tax act” google ad. I wonder if the “stolen property” is a field on those tax forms. If you fill it in, does it alert the cops that you have stolen property?

  9. Thomas Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 9:05 pm

    What happens if you steal a bunch of stuff, and then donate it? Could you write it off?

  10. phree_radical Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 6:08 am

    Funny, but maybe it is something you have to do after being convicted of the crime p;

  11. The IRS are accomplices to thieves » musings Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 11:47 am

    […] I saw this here: “If You Steal, The IRS Wants A Cut“ […]

  12. Ana Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    You Americans have weird laws to say the least ;)

  13. grobar Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 9:18 pm

    yuk yuk, i know its hilarious, but seriously, usually those silly (stupid) enough to steal would probably do something like this.

    I’m in Canada, and we don’t, to my knowledge, have antyhing like this.

    the “government” is just “the people” which means YOU….so if you want to pay hard earned taxes, and want to let some commoner get away with both stealing, and tax evasion, then go ahead mate!

  14. maffiou Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 2:49 am

    A while ago, in France, The French IRS (FISC) was suing a bunch of prostitutes over income tax.

    The prostitutes were protesting that this was illegal since there is a law against pimping in France…

    You could see them picketing with signs saying “The state is my pimp !” hilarious !

  15. black_dragonet Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 1:12 pm

    Since you didn’t pay for these ten gallon gas at the misfunctioning gas pump, maybe you should put the amount in that section, could you not ?

    That one is REAL fun!

  16. Jelster Says:
    January 8th, 2007 at 5:42 pm

    Hear that?

    Its the sound of a tax loophole being close. :)

    I expect someone once got away with not paying taxes because they claimed everything they had was stolen and not legally theirs to be taxed on. Or something like that anyway.

  17. John Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    Pretty sure that this has been there for a few years. I’ve also heard that the IRS is not allowed to turn over this information. Not sure I believe it though. :)

  18. Julien Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 1:40 am

    So… my question is:
    If you cheat on your taxes and pay considerably less than you really owe is it considered stealing from the IRS?
    If so you could report the stolen money and you would only have to pay taxes on a fraction of the “stolen” money (depending on your tax bracket)! Even better… now the IRS can’t turn you in, and if you get audited you have a strong case for Entrapment ;)

    What do you think?

  19. monks Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 9:26 am

    Julien, you are so getting audited.

  20. Blog Ryan » Ryan’s Radar Jan 11 ‘07 Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 9:58 am

    […] Shawn Hogan showed a snapshot of an IRS tax doc that says if you steal something during the course of the year, you need to pay tax on it…what will the government think of next? Does that not make them complicit? […]

  21. Christoph C. Cemper Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 4:14 am

    hahah that’s amazing funny stuff! you rock!

    Please DO steal some pack of gum and let us know if there was some special of your tax return sheet :-D

  22. Alex Graf Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 5:24 am

    Well I could think of the following:
    2 guys making nice business with each other, not wanting to pay tax. So they simply tell that they stole the goods or money from each other , because the penalty for this theft might be a lot lower than the tax.

    On the other hand about what Julien said:
    >If you cheat on your taxes and pay considerably less than you really owe is it considered stealing from the IRS?
    If so you could report the stolen money and you would only have to pay taxes on a fraction of the “stolen” money (depending on your tax bracket)

  23. Alex Graf Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 5:25 am

    This thig cut my text, I wanted to say:

    You could do this recusively again and again until your tax is only some cents.

  24. JGrimes Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    This is solely so that they can pull an ‘Al Capone’ on people.

    Al Capone was arrested for Tax Fraud, since they couldn’t get anyone to testify or enough evidence for any of his other (many) crimes.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Federal_income_taxes_and_downfall

  25. Pat Gael Says:
    March 19th, 2007 at 1:15 am

    Hey, Shoemoney was asked for $200 only. It seems that such gang does some marketing research prior extortion.

    BTW, did you know that Al Capone is a DP member?, I have seen him lurking around.

  26. Alvis Jenkins Says:
    May 3rd, 2007 at 7:28 pm

    Relax folks!! No one is required to file federal income taxes even if you are a thief. If you haven’t read the internal revenue code and or the Treasury regulations then you will think that everyone must pay the federal income tax. Knowledge is power!!

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