This might be the most terrifying program I have ever heard of. I am struggling to think of anything other than the potential consequences of this.
I know of at least two business owners who are flat out stealing from the IRS and their employees. Both of them are more than three years behind on federal withholding tax payments. It's not even their money! This is their employees' withholding tax. I know this because of public filings against them. I can only imagine their personal tax situation.
Everyone I talk to says the same thing: "Ooooooh boy, they've really got it coming." When? When do they have it coming, exactly? Because as far as I can see, they're both still driving cars that are more expensive than mine, live in houses that are bigger than mine, and spend money like it's going out of style.
I have no desire to skip on my taxes, and I'm perfectly happy with the life I live, but it flat out pisses me off to see these people cheat the system and get away with it. It makes me feel like the "big bad IRS" is just some children's fairy tale meant to scare normal people in to compliance. Meanwhile, a whole pack of miscreants run amok with other peoples' money. It's just not right. Frankly, I'd rather see these people in jail than the pot head down the street that is spending 90 days in jail for the joint he had in his pocket while walking home from work. True story.
Given the fact that the IRS would indeed have to investigate and then prosecute whatever fraud may be present, they would have to have a fairly solid and material understanding of the circumstances leading to tax dodging. People who are filing false claims can and probably should be prosecuted for misleading the government officials.
The IRS isn't some inhuman soul sucking beast. It is a bureaucracy, but when you get down to the level of dealing with individuals who have discretion to make decisions, every experience I've had with them so far has been friendly and understanding. As far as i can tell they really do try to err on the side of not screwing individuals at the very least.
Hence, if I read OP correctly, the money in question was taken from their employees.
I can sense the downvotes already... but let me explain why this program is terrible. If I charged everyone a tax, and threatened people with violence if they didn't pay up, then everyone would recognize it was wrong. When government does it, the brainwashed masses think it's a good thing. But it is bad when the government taxes people just like it would be bad if I taxed people. It doesn't matter what the government does with the money (which is mostly wasted, but that's beside the point). It is still wrong.
To rat someone out who opts not to pay for the protection racket that is taxes is to participate in the crime of stealing their wealth. That is why this program is terrible. It converts ordinary citizens into criminals.
Government has one tool that legitimate organizations don't have: force. Because it is wrong to force people to do stuff, government is immoral. Government is therefore a criminal organization, like a scaled up version of the mafia. If these ideas appeal to you, I recommend reading the works of Murray Rothbard, in particular "For a New Liberty", but his books on economics will also set you on the right path.
The tax system exists to fund services that are generally not used by someone until they are needed (FEMA, Medicare, unemployment, etc.). I can honestly say I would never pay into any of these programs unless I had to and I think most people would do the same (even if they wouldn't admit to it openly).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pa...
Alternatively, your parent could belong to the set of people who basically figure the money will just come from somewhere. They don't really care where, so long as it's someone else's money.
All of these issues are discussed extensively in the libertarian literature. Murray Rothbard and Stefan Molyneux are good places to start.
Well, the simplest of the logic errors there is that one. Immoral does not equal illegal. I'm not even going to get into the fact that it's not always wrong to force people to do things.
I meant criminal as in immoral, not as in illegal. Obviously the government is going to declare its taxes legal.
> I'm not even going to get into the fact that it's not always wrong to force people to do things.
There are cases where it's OK to force people to do stuff, just like there are cases where it's OK to kill someone. But those cases are rare. Government employs force beyond those rare moral cases, and is therefore immoral.
That's not what criminal means. Except in the sense of "deplorable and shocking" criminal means "of or relating to a crime." Crime means "An action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law". Crime has one non-legal definition, "An action or activity that, although not illegal, is considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong" but that's the sense applied to, for example, Apartheid, not to organized crime.
But those cases are rare.
No they aren't. I put a fence around my property to force people to go around it. It works 24x7x365. If people choose to circumvent that fence, I will personally force them to leave my property. This will happen precisely as often as people choose to bypass my fence.