| >There are also, afaik, strict rules for the IRS to firewall this info from criminal (as opposed to tax) prosecutions. The motivation for these rules is to not discourage people from paying tax on all their enterprises. I don't know how well that works in practice, but I feel like if it is used at all in criminal prosecutions then that would still be a 5th Amendment violation. That is, imagine this hypothetical: - They have evidence you're a head gangster. - They raid your warehouses and find a set of accounting books showing profits of $17,530,000. - They subpoena tax records that turn out to have you saying "Misc income: $17,530,000." - They argue in (criminal) court that, "aha, he must be running a criminal enterprise because his books show the very same income he reported on his tax forms." There, even though you didn't report it as criminal income, they're still using compelled testimony (legal requirement to report that criminal enterprise income) against you in prosecution of said criminal enterprise. Again, I don't know what happens in practice, just saying that if they did it like that, that would be a clear 5th Amendment violation. |
Also, if it's any comfort, they wouldn't need to bother with your tax returns. Unexplained deposits and expenditures are often used to convict people of various crimes. So, I'd expect it to be quite an exception for them to bother with upsetting the IRS <-> criminal taxpayer equilibrium.
Hell, it seems pretty routine now for police, TSA, etc. to just find cash and seize it, forcing the owner to defend the legitimacy of the cash in court, as in funding the prosecution of "$12,345.67 vs State of Texas"; yup, you aren't even considered a party, the govt case is setup to be vs the cash pile itself, presumed to be guilty of being illegal proceeds.
Fun Stuff!