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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

The IRS, in theory, isn't allowed to share the information.

https://money.cnn.com/2013/02/28/news/economy/illegal-income...

> If you tell the IRS you made $1 million from stealing money or dealing drugs, does the agency tip off the cops?

> Legally, it can't, unless a law-enforcement agency gets a court order granting it access to a specific taxpayer's return. The IRS isn't supposed to proactively alert other agencies about misdeeds unless terrorism is involved. In that case, it still needs a court order to disclose anything, but the IRS can initiate the legal process on its own.

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In Canada, our IRS (the CRA) can only rat out your crimes to police if they’re “serious”, and that includes anything that could involve a sentence of 14 years.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/revenue-canada-has-new-powe...

So when we re-wrote all of our marijuana laws, most infractions were made to include a sentence that ranged “up to” 14 years, e.g. sharing a joint with a 17 year old or growing 5 plants instead of your legally permitted 4.

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cannabis/

Who says the war on drugs is dead…

There seems to be enough loose evidence that this info is used for parallel construction without the IRS' knowledge that you could claim it to defend against certain tax fraud related to illegal activity.

This is technically true in the sense that you can claim any crazy thing you want to (see, e.g., the whole “freemen-on-the-land” movement.)

It is somewhat less true in the sense where “can claim X” includes the implication that the claim of X stands a whelk’s chance in a supernova of prevailing in court.

You can claim that about any otherwise reasonable argument. It works just as well for past (and current) civil rights issues as it does this. You need to instead apply a test of reasonableness. Doing that in this case is asking "Would a reasonable person believe that the government uses reported tax earnings for parallel construction?" to which I believe the answer is "yes."

That most judges are so morally bankrupt as to disagree with you is a separate issue.

Technically, that would mean they aren't allowed to volunteer the information; the source says they do share it once ordered to.

Which, IMHO, violates the Fifth Amendment, as any compelled testimony shouldn't be admissible against you, but of course our jurists gave the government a pass on that.

Or they just use it to start parallel construction. No need to enter it into court or record it as evidence.

> the source says they do share it once ordered to.

I’m no lawyer, but doesn’t _everybody_ have to share information once met with a court order?

A court order can't legally force someone to share incriminating information. Thus if prosecutors want a piece of information for other purposes (like to prosecute a bigger criminal) they will often grant criminal immunity on that point. Then the person being questioned has no 5th Amendment right to remain silent.

I’m not sure where you’re sourcing this, but courts can totally force you to share incriminating information. They cannot compel you to testify against yourself.

As a more mundane example, a court can grant a search warrant compelling you to turn over your computer so that police can look for proof of suspected criminal activity. Likewise, they can get a court order compelling the IRS to hand over your tax returns.

Within the current interpretation of the 5th Amendment, ordering someone to turn over physical property like a computer or safe key isn't legally considered as compelling someone "to be a witness against himself". If you want the source then there are many Supreme Court opinions on this issue.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/obtainopinions.aspx

I feel like we’ve looped. You wrote “A court order can't legally force someone to share incriminating information”. I gave an example where the court could force you to share incriminating information. Did you perhaps mean that a court order can’t force someone to answer questions that may incriminate them?

> A court order can't legally force someone to share incriminating information.

It can't force someone to give potentially self-incriminating testimony (not all “information” is “testimony”, and not all incrimination is self-incrimination.)

If we're being pedantic, the specific legal phrase is "witness against himself". The courts have interpreted that more broadly than just testimony.

Also not a lawyer, but my understanding:

Lawyers, doctors, and therapists (also technically doctors) do not need to share and cannot be forced.

They cannot be forced to share privileged information they may have. However, this does not protect the class of information as a whole. IE if you share your medical or legal information to a third party, they can be forced to share it.

Possibly also journalists, although this is less respected in practice.

Journalists have no such protection under US federal law. Some states do have journalist shield laws but those are irrelevant in federal cases.

Journalists have a limited First Amendment right not to be forced to reveal information or confidential news sources in court. There’s a lot of caveats related to this though. It’s called “reporter’s privilege.”

There is no such thing as reporter's privilege in the US Constitution or federal law. You're just making things up.

Spouses too.

> Lawyers, doctors, and therapists (also technically doctors) do not need to share and cannot be forced.

This is not quite correct.

Lawyers, doctors, and therapists (who very often technically are not doctors of any kind), spouses, and clergy have various privileges which limit the scope and circumstances in which they can be compelled, which limits what court orders should be issued and may be raised on motions to quash such orders after they are issued.

>Which, IMHO, violates the Fifth Amendment, as any compelled testimony shouldn't be admissible against you, but of course our jurists gave the government a pass on that.

Don't think so. It's not any compelled testimony. The Fifth only covers compelled testimony against one self, not against others. There are some limited exceptions like lawyers, doctors, spouses but the IRS is not covered under it. You can be compelled to testify against your friend(if the information doesn't incriminate yourself), the Fifth doesn't protect against that.

Great, but in this case it is testimony against yourself.

I don't know that it's technically testimony, though.

If the cops seize your diary in a raid using a warrant, it can be introduced at trial. It's evidence, not testimony.

You're filling out an official form that you're required to, and affirming that the statements are correct under penalty of law.

The caveat here is that you can list it as misc or various. So no admissions.

It's not testimony. If you don't want the IRS to know about it, you have to invoke the right when you submit the return.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_...

Thank you! I was wondering how this works in practice.

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