Not collecting/withholding taxes from his employees is one thing,
Yes it is, and it is one good thing. Obedience to the law is probably a mistake - but here there was no law to obey. Withholding FICA and income tax payments from payroll without a law requiring it is just plain theft.
but trying to get back payroll and other taxes that had already been paid, might have been pushing it a bit too far.
Well, I disagree. The principle is that Dick withheld those taxes when he didn't know there wasn't a law requiring him to do so. As I understand it, the taxes were refunded to him and he returned these funds to his payroll of employees. The IRS was motivated to pay the refund requests so as to "complete the crime."
I think that's the right thing to do. When you find out that you have mistakenly taken someone else's property, you do what you can to get that property back to its owner. Unless, of course, you are a thief like the IRS.
Hence I'd say it is less a question of law and legalities, than it is a matter of mere survival for state and gov.
Well of course it is, Robert. It is not a question of "less" one thing and more another. It is *all* a question of the state surviving using fraudulent tax collections based on the absence of laws. If the government takes private property without due process of law, it is stealing. And that's where revolutions start.
I fear that 'false and fraudulent claims' is going to be the rope they will hang him with because there they have a case - EVEN, if they can't proof his obligation to withhold taxes.
Well, I guess you are entitled to have fear. I suspect that they are going to have a hard time proving criminality if there was no law broken. If he isn't obliged to withhold these funds from his employees, I think he is ethically obliged to try to get them back on behalf of the employees who were effectively defrauded, with his unintentional help in the first place.
After all, it would have been the employees who would have had to file for a refund, not the employer.
No, that's actually mistaken. Only the employer can file for a refund of FICA mistakenly withheld.
Therefore, even if his every intention was to return the funds to the employees, this 'technicality' may well be enough to force him to plea bargain.
Frankly, Robert, you don't know Dick. He won't plead guilty.
- which all but absolves them from taking responsibility for a ruling.
You know, there are 20 million Texans and over 100 million guns in Texas. I don't think anyone gets absolution except from God. There are a lot of very angry people here who are right on the edge of sending a bunch of delegations up to visit with God on the question of absolution face to face.
Scary times ahead, indeed.
"It's going to be fun!" said TE Lawrence.
"It is well known that you have a strange idea of fun, Lawrence," said his commanding officer.
Regards,
Jim http://www.awdal.com/
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