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Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?
On Tue, 24 Dec 1996, jim bell wrote:
> At 09:39 PM 12/24/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote:
> >At 05:54 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote:
> >>"Man wins $27,000. He will eventually be required to report and pay taxes
> >>on the amount, but not quite yet. Stupid I/R/S people alert him BEFORE he
> >>files his taxes. He reports the payment, as is ostensibly legally required.
> >> He paid the taxes owed. Period."
> >>
> >>THEN you said, "we settled the matter." Huh? What, exactly, was there to
> >>"settle"?
> >
> >Why, of course, the fact that the guy attempted to structure the
> >transaction to evade the reporting requirements in the first place. 31
> >U.S.C. 5324(a).
>
> Who says? He eventually reported it within the legally-defined time. The
> evidence of intent to COMPLY with the law is far stronger than the evidence
> of the opposite.
>
>
> >Structuring (or attempting to structure) a financial
> >transaction to evade the reporting requirements is a violation of this
> >subsection, and 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) says that a willful violation is a
> >five-year felony.
>
> Again, he clearly DID NOT "evade the reporting requirement." Brian Davis
> admitted this. (Whether he ever intended to do this is sheer speculation on
> the part of anyone else. We'll never know; as Davis pointed out, the IRS
> screwed up.) Even if the standard of evidence was as low as "preponderance
> of evidence" (which it, of course, is not in a criminal case) he SHOULD have
> won. By waiting until the return was filed and the tax was paid, the IRS
> was allowing him to resolve whatever ambiguity remained.
You misunderstand what the statute intends. The violation is for
attempting to evade *the bank's* requirement to report certain
transactions (i.e. >$10K). He structured the transaction in an effort to
keep the bank from complying with the law.
> Actually, if there were any justice, he should have been able to sue the
> bank for reporting him and NOT INFORMING HIM of that fact. (I presume the
> law requires the bank to report suspicious transactions. I also presume
> that the law _doesn't_ prohibit the bank from telling the customer that it
> will have to report that transaction.) The bank, presumably being experts
> in the matter, recognizes that lay individuals can't be expected to be experts
> in specialized areas, and should be considered obligated to warn customers
> away from suspicious-looking transactions. I'm sure the REAL LAWYERS (tm)
> on this list will be able to cite examples of where experts of all kinds
> were sued by non-experts for failing to warn them of unexpected dangers that
> could have been averted had the appropriate advice been given promptly.
>
So you want the bank to be your nanny? The guy is a lawyer and had
previously been involved in transactions in which such reports had been
filed. What is your explanation for the three 3 $9k check request?
EBD
>
>
>
> Jim Bell
> [email protected]
>