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Comment by octoberfranklin | Hacker News Reader

and told her not to let Detwiler know about they were investigating him.

... and she complied. Looks like he chose his accountant poorly.

I don't know the state law there but it's not uncommon for an account to be liable (and need to notify authorities in cases of tax evasion)

is that a legal request?

Surely they can request anything they want? Assuming it's just a request and she can ignore it if she pleases.

I’m sure they were able to put pressure on her in order to stay silent; or, they had a gag order placed on her.

If she was doing it for him, she was likely doing it for others and thus it was in her best interests to stay silent for one to protect the revenue stream from the others.

Yeah, I feel like if I were an accountant who wanted to be able to keep practicing in a state without legal issues, and the state told me "we're pretty sure your client was doing something illegal and think you might have known about it, so tell us everything you know and don't tell your client before we arrest them and we'll take into account your cooperation", I probably would also do what they suggested

"I was advising someone to do something illegal but then they got caught so I'm throwing them straight under the bus to save myself"

Yeah that's the American spirit right there

There is no way his accountant actually told him to do a tax fraud meme. I’m sure he did it himself, then just plopped some random paperwork in the accounting portal and just assumed he’d be fine.

"I thought my criminal accountant had more principles" is a pretty hilarious complaint (if that's even what happened; I agree with the sibling comment that there's not really any reason to assume that it went down that way)

That’s a terrible plan in the large, though. You don’t want people lying to their accountant, or their doctor, or their lawyer. If you can’t trust a person in that occupation, they’re useless to you. It’s in society’s best interest for people to confide openly with their helpers in those professions.

Is it in society’s best interest or criminal’s?

Society's, clearly. Same reason you don't want someone lying to their doctor and hiding that they have an infectious disease.

The deal was probably that the acccountant wouldn't be charged for helping evading taxes.

If they were ignorant that would just be blackmail under cover of law. If they were guilty that would be selective enforcement.

See, if you had chosen your accountant with vigor, you'd have found one that uses a canary trap that daily sends you an email that no government agency inquired about you today and then just don't send an email on the day they did. Make 'em earn their money!

At least in the EU an account knowing filing tax evasion reports would lose their license and can be criminally charged.

That works great until your account has an accident and requires emergency surgery or something, and then you panic for no reason

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