I have seen multiple times on Lemmy that the IRS wants people to report income from illegal means and that they don’t care to bust someone for it. For example, an illicit drug dealer is expected by the IRS to report their drug sale revenue without having to worry about being caught for drug dealing.
Will the IRS seriously not report illegal activities or individuals that report they earned income through vague illegal means?
If they don’t, do law enforcement agencies skim IRS tax reports to find people that report illegal income to further investigate?
Can IRS tax forms that report illegal income be used against someone in court?
It just seems ridiculous that reporting illegal activity, however undefined, to the federal government would be a safe option.
I think there’s only a camp on the IRS forms for illegal activity because some random criminal was charged with something and then tax evasion. He successfully argued it couldn’t be tax evasion cause there was no field for it and if he put it elsewhere, it would be fraud
I’m pretty sure they added the field specifically to catch Al Capone for tax evasion
I’ve never heard someone refer to the most successful and famous prohibition era mobster as “some random criminal” before. That criminal was named Al Capone. He controlled all of Chicago, and smuggling routes to many other major US cities. There are several books, TV shows, and movies made after the story of his life.