Using Foursquare to Detect Tax Evasion / Money Laundering • Hacker News Board

Re: Using Foursquare to Detect Tax Evasion / Money Laundering

#51

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 8:53 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #48

ChuckMcM wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's showed me bank statements, things like 'points' and 'cashback' and other 'features' of the card all seem to come back to the merchant as deductions against the amount billed vs the amount payed. He summed up the total billed (what he charged at the register) and the total deposited, and computed the difference, that difference was 8.5% rounded to the first decimal place.

Sure if he's doing small transactions but in general you shouldn't be allowing people to use a credit card to make a $2 purchase, right? What is defined (in this thread) as "most cash businesses" would be to me businesses that would typically allow someone to pay with a credit card. That wouldn't be a local bodega allowing some to pay for a pack of gum with a credit card. It would be a business allowing cc use in a t…

Entirely possible. for a long time in California it was illegal (state law) to require a minimum purchase amount in order to use credit cards I believe (but can certainly be mis-remembering) that this was only recently changed. And yes, his business does include a lot of 'small' transactions like someone coming in to get a key made etc.

Re: Using Foursquare to Detect Tax Evasion / Money Laundering

#52

Post by larrys » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 8:57 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #19

You can slice this the other way also: using check-ins for a particular person to track where they visit. If their reported income is low, yet they check-in regularly at expensive restaurants and travel the globe, you've probably got a tax cheat in there somewhere or another. Seriously, I have no idea why we discuss some of this stuff. It only serves to give ammo for other people to monitor and control us in ways the…

"Seriously, I have no idea why we discuss some of this stuff."

There are times on HN when I laugh because people discuss things that could happen that in a practical sense stand little chance of happening. But they hang on the fact that it is possible the same way they might know someone who got ticketed for going 2 miles over the posted speed limit.

The IRS has (or had) a program called TCMP where they dissect everything on a tax return to see if it's kosher from many different angles. They will also see the "lifestyle" that you are leading and dig depending on that.

The IRS doesn't need foursquare to gather information to determine tax cheats they have other ways to do that if they wanted to. They could rely more on information on snitches or they could simply do a better job of correlating where someone lives with what they pay in taxes as a starting point (I believe they do some of this already but it's probably only at the zip code level). A good test for how they don't do this is to try and tip them off to someone who you think is cheating. Without hard evidence they won't do anything.

"check-in regularly at expensive restaurants and travel the globe"

You can buy some of this data in various forms the same way any marketer does. Or you can access property records. If someone has two houses and is reporting $20k in income that's a good place to start asking questions. You could then correlate it with what their reported income is as a starting point. From everything I've seen though the IRS doesn't operate that way.

Re: Using Foursquare to Detect Tax Evasion / Money Laundering

#53

Post by jonknee » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 9:02 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #46

jonknee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on your transaction amount, the fees can easily exceed 8.5%. When I had no change the other day and paid 45 cents at a parking station with a credit card I can guarantee the fees were more than 8.5%.

We're talking about merchant fees here. Not what a credit card user pays etc.

That's exactly what I meant, I paid $.45 but the city likely paid $.31 in fees. Braintree for example would run 2.89% + $.30. That's a very high percentage (69%).