Imagine smash and grab person, he or she will be charged for that, but bot for selling that and not taxing that profit. Or small scale drug dealer, he makes money but does not get charged with tax evasion. Same for robbery or embezzlement or anything. Why are tax evasion charges not being added on top of original charges??
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There’s typically a delay between when income is received and when taxes are owed. For a one time thing, this is usually at least 4 months in the US (taxes for the year are due the following April). For recurring/predictable income, you typically make a payment every quarter, but again with some delay between when the quarter ends and when taxes are due.
So if someone is arrested seconds or hours after a smash-and-grab, how do you prove that they did not *intend* to pay taxes on that income? By the time the taxes are due, they’ve already had the income taken away, and the case may be over anyway.
It’s possible to get large or complex criminal organizations on tax evasion charges, but it requires either that they keep records of income collected years ago (cue Stringer Bell’s admonishment about “taking notes on a criminal conspiracy”) or that you have an investigation that lasts long enough to document that income yourself.
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