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Comment by prmph | Hacker News Reader

1. Speeding over the speed limit can be a crime. I haven't ever driven in the US and not noticed that pretty much everyone around me is over-speeding

2. Failing to pay tax on certain gifts can be a crime

> You make a gift if you give property (including money), or the use of or income from property, without expecting to receive something of at least equal value in return. If you sell something at less than its full value or if you make an interest-free or reduced-interest loan, you may be making a gift. [1]

3. If you are reading Hacker News on end instead of working for your employers who pays you, you could be stealing from them, a felony.

4. Jay-walking can a misdemeanor, and open to interpretation. Commit 3 misdemeanors and you could have committed a felony.

5. More examples come to mind

[1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

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>1. Speeding over the speed limit can be a crime. I haven't ever driven in the US and not noticed that pretty much everyone around me is over-speeding

Most "over-speeding" isn't a crime, and is only a civil infraction. It only becomes a crime when you're absurdly over the limit.

> 2. Failing to pay tax on certain gifts can be a crime

Again, it can be a crime, but not for the overwhelming majority of people. The gift exemption limit for 2025 is $19,000. How many people are getting that much in gifts, but don't have their shit together for a tax lawyer? Moreover there's a section for it on your tax returns, so the "I forgot" excuse makes as much sense as "forgetting" to file taxes for your crypto sales.

>3. If you are reading Hacker News on end instead of working for your employers who pays you, you could be stealing from them, a felony.

>3. Jay-walking can a misdemeanor, and open to interpretation. Commit 3 misdemeanors and you could have committed a felony.

Source on either of them happening in actuality?

>> How many people are getting that much in gifts

The giver of the gift should file form 709 and potentially pay taxes, not the recipient. Recipient pays nothing.

>The giver of the gift should file form 709

still, you only have to file if you're gifting above $18k

https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i709

Despite the name, a gift tax return isn’t to pay any tax, it’s just to deduct the gift from a future (several million dollar) estate tax exemption. There’s no reason to avoid filing one.

>Most "over-speeding" isn't a crime, and is only a civil infraction. It only becomes a crime when you're absurdly over the limit.

"Absurdly" is 15-20 depending on state and most highway traffic hits that outside of peak hours. The only reason the cops don't make a cash cow out of it is because doing so would get either the laws or speed limits changed to reflect reality.

>Again, it can be a crime, but not for the overwhelming majority of people. The gift exemption limit for 2025 is $19,000. How many people are getting that much in gifts, but don't have their shit together for a tax lawyer? Moreover there's a section for it on your tax returns, so the "I forgot" excuse makes as much sense as "forgetting" to file taxes for your crypto sales.

Trivially easy to move that kind of money or goods/services of equivalent value when you have a family business.

>Source on either of them happening in actuality?

The powers that be aren't stupid enough to actually burn that capability using it. I have zero doubt they verbally use it in negotiations all the time.

> Trivially easy to move that kind of money or goods/services of equivalent value when you have a family business.

And then you should register the gift; it's not hard when filing your taxes. Importantly, the gift exclusion limit is not $19k total, it's $19k per recipient, per year (indeed, a common estate planning technique for rich people is to give away the annual max to loads of their heirs every year). And if you're over the $19k limit, you don't even have any taxes to pay, it just reduces your estate tax exemption amount.

>It only becomes a crime when you're absurdly over the limit.

I vividly remember my confusion learning about how many states in the US use an absolute value to turn speeding violation into a criminal charge, and namely Virginia which just a few years ago had that value set to 80mph (~130kmh) - a state with lots of interstate traffic and I-95 speed limit set to 70 mph (~115kmh).

And I could understand a predatory scheme set up by the government to generate revenue - set speed limit low, make fines really high. But in this case it's not clear to me what the state is gaining - throwing someone in jail for a weekend and labeling that person a criminal ruins their life for good but there's almost no profit for the treasury.

People obeying the speed limit encounter fewer people obeying the speed limit than people speeding and vice versa.

My theory: I think this explains why so many drivers hate other drivers and think they are bad drivers.

People that love to speed think they are good because they can drive faster and react quickly (presumably). They inadvertently see more people that don’t drive in this style.

People who drive carefully encounter more reckless drivers.

Driving carefully (resp. recklessly) isn't the same as driving under (resp. over) the limits.

I've been pulled by gendarmes who told me "yes, we know this limit should be 20 km/h higher" but still fined me. Absurd limits targeting the lowest common denominator in vehicle/driver reliability or simply because your local mayor wants to turn his city into a pedestrian/cyclist paradise by making it car hell really aren't rare here.

Nobody cares or even notices all the cars driving normally, it's the sub par people everyone notices. I think there's some minority of drivers who stopped getting any better once they got their license who soak up the hate from everybody. If that minority is say 5-10% it's basically guaranteed that literally everyone else is inconvenienced by one of them on every trip.

Traffic rules are not criminal laws. Breaking a traffic rule is not a crime. Likewise, reading news at work is not a felony, just a lack of discipline and work ethic.

Understand that there are differences between rules, policy, regulations, and laws. Work is regulated (rule is on how to do things), policy is practiced (rule on how things are treated), while laws forbid (rule on what you cannot do).

In many states, such as Maryland, traffic laws are criminal laws and breaking a traffic law is a misdemeanor criminal offense.

> Breaking a traffic rule is not a crime.

You think over speeding and running a red light and hitting someone and potentially killing them is not a crime? Think again.

Regarding reading at work, see this comment [1]:

> checking Hacker News from work when you should be working is a federal felony, and if not honest services fraud, certainly something they could try you with for wire fraud (it is financial in that you are billing your employer for your time!). Moreover if you check a site for non-work purposes which has a note in the ToS which says that unlawful use is prohibited, then you have committed felony computer trespass (because you "accessed" their servers in excess of authorization provided by the ToS in pursuit of criminal or tortuous ends).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5860641

Also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43745382

There is a huge lifetime gift tax exemption.

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