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Comment by ta17711771 | Hacker News Reader

Are you?

Or just avoiding an easy conviction under tax evasion laws?

paying taxes on illicit activities = relying on admitting the illicit activities either directly on the tax form or in an audit = FAIL

not paying taxes on illicit activities = tax evasion and likely discovery of illicit activity in criminal investigation = FAIL

money laundering = illegal if the government has determined the source is illicit = FAIL

those are the options and deterrents.

if you money launder with proper obfuscation, you wind up with money that you do pay taxes on and will never trigger an investigation.

Indeed. As the old saying goes, Al Capone got nailed on tax evasion. As I understand it, the IRS is more interested in the amount than where it came from.

Capone got nailed for evasion because his brother got nailed for evasion and he got scared so he tried to preemptively normalize his own tax situation but in doing so indirectly admitted that he hadn't paid taxes, so they busted him with no further evidence required.

But they also were trying to bust him for evasion because he declared zero income and lived a visibly lavish lifestyle. The government was gathering evidence on his spending to estimate his income and how much he evaded.

You can't sustainably solve that problem by simply paying lots of tax on magic illegal money, especially not in today's interconnected world. Laundering is core to the solution.

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