It's a common thing to not exactly give notice of proceedings despite the legal requirement. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/nyregion/31debt.html?_r=0 Would like to think that Massachusetts is more scrupulous, but maybe it's one of those "we'll keep our hands clean by demanding more of process servers than is humanly possible and pretend to be shocked when the inevitable happens" kind of things.
It could happen to you too
21–30 of 85 posts
Re: It could happen to you too
#22"And I'm one of the lucky ones. We use a foreign bank for the vast majority of our assets, and keep only a small amount in Chase for bills and such."
Section 319 of the USA PATRIOT Act specifically allow for the seizure of any money in Interbank Accounts held in the U.S... You may not be safe.
18 USC § 981(k) is the specific part of the U.S. Code that deals with this.
I knew that spending two years reading about the Patriot Act and writing it up on Wikipedia would be useful one day...
Re: It could happen to you too
#23[deleted]
Re: It could happen to you too
#24My personal and business banking is done at Chase. I've found them to be fantastic and managed to avoid pretty much any fees by following the guidance of very helpful employees. I know everyone loves to bag on big banks, but Chase has been great. Bank of America is another story - their website barely works. That said, I highly recommend anyone with significant assets open a bank account in a foreign country where se…
Rather than repeat myself, I'll just link to the comment I made about the rules that relate to civil forfeiture and Interbank Accounts for non-U.S. financial institutions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5215598
Beware!
Re: It could happen to you too
#25Without more details the whole story sounds iffy. Since he did not give us more details but still shared his story I will speculate that he took advantage of what he thought were some clever tax loopholes in MA. Remember that hid did state very passingly that he has a presence in MA. Specifically this:
>>Again, I hadn't lived there or worked there since 2003, but I did own part of a business that was headquartered in MA, and the state was using this fact to harass me for income tax moneySo in essence, he probably took advantage of some iffy tax loop hole which the state now probably disagrees with and is asking for whatever it thinks it is owed.
Re: It could happen to you too
#26This happened to my dad recently. All accounts frozen. For $22 in unpaid taxes due to a discrepancy.
The funny part is that you can't write them a check for $22 when all of your accounts are frozen. #recursion
To everyone who is alarmed by this it actually happens a lot and is not necessarily Chase's fault. A lot of banks do this. Blame the IRS, our large government, and their incessant need to take everything from everyone in order to pay for all the social programs we don't need. Okay I didn't really need to add that last bit .. don't want to start a big war on HN with my political viewpoint.
Re: It could happen to you too
#27Sigh. I understand the angst, tax organizations are the worst. However, a piece of advice.
If you file a tax return in a state, and then you leave. Make sure you file a tax return the next year as well but put down zero taxable income.
What I have seen states do, is take the last year you filed a return "presume" you made that much in the next year but just "forgot" to file, and then charge you for back taxes. You counter this behavior by filing a $0 tax return so that the last year on the books you made $0 and when they use the last year you filed to compute your 'expected' return for the current year they will start with $0. A CPA friend suggested that you continue this for three years as that was the 'average' over which they might make a computation.
Either way, its a pain. But filing a state return with $0 on it is pretty straight forward thing these days with efiling.
Re: It could happen to you too
#28Bitcoin.
I don't underestimate the difficulty of Bitcoin becoming a viable tool to transact daily life, but this is something that could not happen with Bitcoin. If nothing else, the fact that Bitcoin provides a fundamentally different way to transfer value, independent from state or corporate interference shows that there are potential alternatives.
Re: It could happen to you too
#29[deleted]
Re: It could happen to you too
#30My personal and business banking is done at Chase. I've found them to be fantastic and managed to avoid pretty much any fees by following the guidance of very helpful employees. I know everyone loves to bag on big banks, but Chase has been great. Bank of America is another story - their website barely works. That said, I highly recommend anyone with significant assets open a bank account in a foreign country where se…
Yeah,
It sounds like the "problem entity" is the state government of Massachusetts. Given the power the US government, as a whole, has arrogated to itself lately, one just shouldn't expect that having the letter of the law on your side will protect you in any meaningful way once the state decides it wants your stuff. Just staying out of its way may be the best policy if this is at all practical.
I had a similarly insane bill from another state tax board and I count my lucky stars it never came to a full dispute. Fortunately all I had to do was call them and explain the situation. I wouldn't expect that would work for everyone.