North Carolina has a tax on "unauthorized substances" (drugs, moonshine, etc.) which can be paid anonymously by purchasing tax stamps.

You can still get in trouble for possession of course.

That is insane. Scratch that, it's surreal. There seems no logic for the government to offer this, and no logic for users to pay this tax. That is so strange.

I think it's that the state would rather receive the tax money than enforce federal law. As for the users, it protects them from state prosecution for tax evasion.

> I think it's that the state would rather receive the tax money than enforce federal law

Which is surely going to happen because people will pay taxes even anonymously, because it's such an enjoyable activity.

USAians in particular looove to pay tax!

(signed: a brit. Who knows nothing of history)

Edit: flippant, but now I can start to see the rationale. Thanks all.

i presume it's offered because more tax revenue is more tax revenue. it's also worth paying to avoid irs-instigated legal issues.

> i presume it's offered because more tax revenue is more tax revenue.

Most states with these kinds of tax stamp laws passed them explicitly to create a new crime to charge people with, not to actually collect any tax revenue. In some cases it provides an excuse to seize property when state law would otherwise prohibit it (they aren't using civil/criminal forfeiture, just seizing property to payoff a tax debt). If you showed up to buy the stamps they wouldn't sell them - some states didn't even bother printing any.

Eventually this was tested in courts and squashed; the courts ruled you can't create an impossible-to-follow law just to catch people. If the law says you have to buy weed stamps then the state must actually sell them. The state also can't use it to entrap you (eg: by requiring you bring the weed to the tax office, then arresting you for possession).

There's a small cottage industry of folks who collect these tax stamps because they're so rarely issued. Most people don't bother buying them so the law still serves its purpose of giving prosecutors more crimes to charge you with.

The IRS doesn’t handle state taxes, but state tax agencies can bring on tax evasion charges as well.

> the IRS doesn’t talk to the police for anything other than tax evasion.

Source?

I don’t know whether the IRS proactively shares information with law enforcement, though I wouldn’t be surprised, but I do know with absolute certainty that the IRS regularly works with law enforcement on many issues that don’t necessarily relate to tax evasion. Money laundering being chief among them.

There’s a bi-weekly process called “314(a) Information Sharing” that’s run by the Treasury Department under the USA PATRIOT Act. It requires financial institutions to pass all kinds of information on to the agencies in the Department - IRS, Secret Service, Customs, ATF, Homeland Security, etc. - who are looking into various matters. All of those agencies are under the same umbrella and they absolutely work together.

A good friend of mine is also a forensic accountant/investigator for the US Attorney’s Office so I know the IRS works closely with the DOJ though I’m not familiar with how that process works in practice.

In our recent ACAMS chapter event, the IRS person seemed very eager to be pro-active ( and in AML world the general push is towards greater surveillance anyway ). I don't know how common this attitude is, but I never hear anyone really challenging it either.

It isn’t a huge secret: https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/federal-state-local-...

> IRC 6103(i)(1) provides that, pursuant to court order, return information may be shared with law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution of non-tax criminal laws.

They need a warrant, the IRS can’t proactively share tax info with law enforcement agencies for non-tax law reasons.

> They need a warrant, the IRS can’t proactively share tax info with law enforcement agencies for non-tax law reasons.

Unless the US Congress asks for them.

That is another law, but yes.

Please do not take HN threads into partisan battle. This is off topic here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Did this certain person further crack down on this country and associated oligarchs, even after Congress passed sanctions, which this certain person signed? Did this certain person do far more to punish this country than this person's predecessor, even though the predecessor knew this country had been interfering with federal elections for well over a year and did nearly nothing to stop it?

You are revision history, badly. To take the dumb mask off, Obama was informed by the FBI of their suspicions of tampering. He knew it would look politically motivated, so he approached high members of congress about it ... and Mitch McConnnel refused to participate.

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/21/587614043/fact-check-why-didn...

Congress unilaterally passed sanctions which the current WH administration objected to and failed to enforce.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/trump-signs-bipart...