Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 1001 posts

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#761

Post by chalst »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #540
AdamN wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US indeed has draconian punishments. However 30 years is a starting/worst case scenario to encourage a plea bargain. Plea bargains are horrendous and really should be banned or made extremely rare.

I completely agree, but plea bargains are also the basic mechanism by which the justice system functioned. They represent something like 95% of convictions. If everybody who currently took a plea switched to demanding a trial, we'd need at least twenty times as many judges and juries. I'm not against that, mind you, I'm just saying that you are proposing a massive sea change in the legal system. Everything about the…

Given the US imprisons its citizens at nearly ten times the rate that Germany does, has hugely unpredictable outcomes to civil suits, and clearly has serious problems with reliability of convictions in criminal cases, the question shouldn't be whether the US should have radical changes to its legal system, but how to achieve it.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#762

Post by silverpepsi »

ne0flex wrote: post #711
carl_dr wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and Eritrea. I knew this was a thing, but I had always assumed a US citizen living abroad only ended up paying tax to the IRS if the tax they paid to the foreign government was less than what they would have paid to the US, and only the difference is paid. But it seems that’s not the case, and you get an exemption for “only” the first $108,700 of your earnings. As with everything the IRS does, it seems complex…

A friend of mine that is a Canada & US dual citizen got royally screwed by the IRS. Canada has tax free savings accounts (TFSA) that are essentially retirement accounts that are similar to Roth IRA in the US, except with a lot less restrictions. He had opened his TFSA account in Canada when he was 18 and was investing since then. Eventually he got a green card and became a US citizen. It was at that point he realized…

>I can't remember if the amount was exempted under $108,700

Most unlikely, that's an earned income exemption. So basically salary or say invoices paid for consulting that year when the work was performed while physically on foreign soil (US taxes you 100% for any work done on the seas or in international air space)

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#763

Post by XorNot »

marcan_42 wrote: post #736
XorNot wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know...you could pay your taxes and stop stealing from the rest of us.

To be fair, the dude doesn't live in the US. There are only two countries in the world that tax citizens overseas, and the US is one of them. I'm certainly not excusing his actions (and I'm sure he dodged taxes in many ways), but I have to say that as a Spanish citizen having lived in the US, Ireland, and now Japan, the US tax code is batshit insane.

Sure, but he also refused to pay his taxes while being a US citizen and on money he earned in the US. And did so not from a place of disputing the validity of the tax bill, but simply refusing to pay the legally issued tax bill because he didn't want to.

If US citizenship has a whole lot of advantages that mean you want to keep it, then the price is perfectly clear up front: you are bound to the US tax code.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#764

Post by pdpi »

FireBeyond wrote: post #700
dragonwriter wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A US federal judge found him culpable for a murder civilly False. A US federal judge entered a default judgement against him in a wrongful death suit. Murder is not a civil offense, the standards for civil wrongful death are not remotely the same as murder, and wrongful death liability (even based on a trial and evidence) doesn't indicate that one has even approximately committed murder. And, in any case the judgem…

> It establishes civil liability, but does not indicate anything (or even that anyone has reached any judgement) about the relevant facts. Hence the word culpable, and not guilty.

The point is that "murder" and "civil law" don't go together. Murder as a concept is always a criminal law issue.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#765

Post by kenneth »

mc32 wrote: post #3

Good or bad, what a sad ending to a colorful life. The guy was troubled and had many shortcomings, but he was colorful and also achieved success and arguably was one of the seminal figures in the nascent AV industry. Sad to see his fall from grace and into a world of extravagance, deceit and cheating (taxes) and, if allegations true, even worse; then to end it on the floor of a jail -all by his own hands.

I wouldn't take the claims of suicide at face value when McAfee has literally stated that if he dies of suicide it's probably a setup.

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/131680121508322509...

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/120086428376625152...

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#766

Post by paledot »

gwbas1c wrote: post #754
gpt5 wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selective enforcement is bad. The fact that the law says that you could go to prison for one year for not filing taxes on time, but that it's rarely enforced means that they should fix the law. Using it only on "bad guys" is a recipe for the government punishing people that disagrees with them.

The tax code is too confusing and subjective to send everyone who makes a mistake to prison. Jail is for people who actively dodge taxes, not someone who submitted their taxes a few days late.

That also sounds like a problem.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#767

Post by justinclift »

jiofih wrote: post #378
Buttons840 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say he was "sloshed" do you mean he was drunk? Or do you mean he was very pleased with your praise?

Not sure why you’re downvoted. I was also confused for a moment - “inebriated with praise” is not an uncommon expression.

Interesting. Haven't heard that expression before.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#769

Post by sixothree »

neom wrote: post #66

I met John in an Atlanta airport lounge years ago[1]. I recognized him immediately as I've always admired him, and I decided to go up to him and tell him as much. He invited me to sit down, and told him about when I was a teenager in the 90s learning about tech entrepreneurs at the time, I always thought he was pretty cool and had good ideas. I told him I respected him, and that I was sure he'd lived an incredible li…

That's a great picture.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#770

Post by capeterson »

dragonwriter wrote: post #753
capeterson wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO extradition over unpaid taxes is kind of severe. I agree that we should all pay our taxes, but why not just hold him at the gate whenever he happens to fly in the US? Is this really something that requires extradition?

> IMO extradition over unpaid taxes is kind of severe? He wasn't indicted for unpaid taxes, but for tax evasion , which is a different thing (and securities fraud.)

That's true! My bad. Nonetheless, I think financial crimes really do not deserve extradition, especially for a deranged geriatric. He would have likely came to the US again at some point, I have no idea why this was necessary.
Post reply on HN