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IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings
IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings in another horrible abuse of civil forfeiture
Lyndon McLellan, a rural North Carolina convenience store owner, woke up one day to discover the IRS had seized every penny of the $107,000 in his bank account. It was all the money he had put away over the course of 13 years of assiduous, hard work.
Last edited by Common Sense (5/04/2015 9:37 am)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”
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Re: IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings
I'm not a fan of civil forfieture (except in the case of major drug cases where assets can be used as evidence) but I'll guess there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. If the store owner has been keeping accurate records of his business for the past ten years, he should clearly be able to show that his taxes have been paid and that there is no reason for the IRS to go after him.
We'll need to follow up on this.
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Re: IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings
TheLagerLad wrote:
I'm not a fan of civil forfieture (except in the case of major drug cases where assets can be used as evidence) but I'll guess there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. If the store owner has been keeping accurate records of his business for the past ten years, he should clearly be able to show that his taxes have been paid and that there is no reason for the IRS to go after him.
We'll need to follow up on this.
I tend to agree.
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Re: IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings
I'm not a fan of civil forfieture (except in the case of major drug cases where assets can be used as evidence) but I'll guess there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. If the store owner has been keeping accurate records of his business for the past ten years, he should clearly be able to show that his taxes have been paid and that there is no reason for the IRS to go after him.
We'll need to follow up on this.
From the articles I have seen about this, this isn't over taxes.
Apparently the IRS believes the owner was "structuring" his deposits to avoid reporting them to the IRS. If someone makes a deposit at a bank of over $10,000, they must complete a form that is sent to the IRS. This was instituted to target drug dealers and terrorists many years ago who had large transactions with banks mainly in cash.
The IRS apparently believes he was making deposits in a fashion to avoid having to complete the forms and report the transactions.
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Re: IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings
Here is the follow up..... He got all of his money back!!
Feds to return $107G they seized from NC business owner, attorneys sayTwo months ago, the government offered McLellan 50 percent of his money back and warned him against chasing publicity, even going so far as to suggest it would rile people inside the IRS and could hurt his chances of seeing his cash again, his attorneys said.
“Today the the DOJ is giving him 100 percent,” said Institute for Justice spokesman J. Justin Wilson. “We got him an enormous amount of publicity – and it did work.”
Lyndon McLellan fought the law -- and apparently, he won.The North Carolina business owner for months has been battling the federal government after IRS agents last fall seized $107,000 from him, under a controversial practice known as civil forfeiture. But his attorneys at the Institute for Justice announced Thursday that the IRS and Department of Justice have moved to dismiss the case and give him back his money. “What’s wrong is wrong, and what the government did here was wrong,” McLellan said in a statement Thursday. “I just hope that by standing up for what’s right, it means it won’t happen to other people.”
FoxNews.com reported earlier this week on McLellan's struggle to get his money back. The Institute for Justice said the feds moved to drop their case on Wednesday. Asked about the claim, an IRS official told FoxNews.com they could not comment on the case; a representative with DOJ has not yet responded to a request for comment. McLellan is just one of thousands of Americans the IRS has seized money from, supposedly for “structuring” funds to avoid a law requiring banks to alert the government of deposits over $10,000. The law was instituted to help the government ferret out drug dealers, terrorists or other criminals -- but the IRS occasionally flags deposits of just under $10,000 as suspicious even if there's no evident criminal wrongdoing, in turn ensnaring people who may be innocent.
Last edited by Common Sense (5/14/2015 7:44 pm)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”
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Re: IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings
Facing Intense Pressure, IRS Drops Civil Forfeiture Case in North Carolina
Government Moves To Return $107,000 Seized From Innocent Small Business Owner;
Refuses To Pay Interest Or Attorney Fees
“The government cannot turn Lyndon’s life upside down and then walk away as if nothing happened,” said Robert Everett Johnson, an attorney at the Institute for Justice who represents Lyndon. “Lyndon should not have to pay for the government’s lapse in judgment. And the government certainly should not profit from its misbehavior by keeping the interest that it earned while holding Lyndon’s money.
We’ll continue to litigate this case until the government makes Lyndon whole.”Lyndon’s situation is hardly unique. Lyndon's money was seized using civil forfeiture, a controversial legal strategy that allows law enforcement officials to take property based on mere suspicion of wrongdoing. No conviction is necessary. To get the property back, owners must engage in costly legal battles. "Civil forfeiture turns the American principle of innocent until proven guilty on its head, forcing property owners to prove their own innocence,” said IJ Attorney Wesley Hottot. “That isn’t just unfair—it’s unconstitutional.”
Last edited by Common Sense (5/15/2015 8:42 am)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”
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Re: IRS seizes rural convenience store owner’s career savings
Lots of articles saying the same thing
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.