A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend who is a fellow tax preparer. He told me a story of “Abe.”
This Abe definitely wasn’t like Honest Abe. He had gone fifteen years without filing a tax return. He had a cashed-based business, had owned his home for years, didn’t have a bank account, and knew enough about currency rules (he never spent more than $7,000 in cash on anything) so he wouldn’t get caught.
And then one day the IRS knocked on his door. And presented him with a very large bill.
Abe has no idea how the IRS found out about him, but my friend was going to prepare 15 years of tax returns for Abe, until he started saying that the tax system is voluntary, and no one has to pay taxes. My friend told Abe that he’s about to find out otherwise.
The moral of the story is fairly obvious. In these days of currency records and suspicious bank activity reports on transactions of as little as $3,000, it’s pretty difficult to escape the IRS and the FTB.
Tags: BozoTaxTips