At 01:15 PM 8/15/96 -0400, Robin Powell wrote:

This relates to something I have been wondering about: If one could get one's company to pay one in electronic cash, what is to stop one from piling the coins in a Datahaven somewhere (assuming one existed that would be usable for these purposes) and say to the IRS: Money? What money? Can you find any of my money? I, uhh... lost it! Yeah, that's it!!

This scenario is more or less the same as being paid in paper cash and then hiding the paper cash. That's not an especially sophisticated tax evasion tactic. If you were on a jury, and you heard a defendant testify that they worked at a job site (either as an employee or a contractor) for years without ever being paid, and that they managed to maintain a lifestyle consistent with full-time work without ever receiving taxable income (whether as wages or dividends or interest or ..), and that the HR/personnel/AP people who testified that the defendant had been paid were mistaken or lying .. would you believe that testimony? Winning in court takes a lot more than making up a conceivable but incredibly implausible chain of events to explain away incriminating circumstances. (* OJ and other cases of nullification notwithstanding. But precious few people have the $ to pay for the kind of defense work needed to get that sort of result.) The notion of "burden of proof" is important, and defense lawyers can jawbone about it for hours - but the bottom line is that the "I don't know anything about getting any money" defense is bullshit. If the jurors can't imagine themselves or their kids or their friends doing what you're claiming you did (working without being paid and with no expectation of being paid), you lose. -- Greg Broiles |"Post-rotational nystagmus was the subject of gbroiles@netbox.com |an in-court demonstration by the People http://www.io.com/~gbroiles |wherein Sgt Page was spun around by Sgt |Studdard." People v. Quinn 580 NYS2d 818,825.