[hn_throwaway_99]

While I'm continually frustrated by the complexity and opaqueness of the US tax code, your analogy doesn't make any sense to me. If your personal finances "struggle with fraud", it means you committed fraud. So yeah, of course you should be held directly responsible. That's very different from a large organization doling out money for tons of various complex projects, and those 3rd parties (or 3rd parties down the chain) commit fraud.

Heck, if you give money to someone and they commit fraud and abscond with your money, you get to take a tax write-off for the stolen funds.

[Terr_]

> you get to take a tax write-off for the stolen funds.

At least for US federal taxes, that changed with a very partisan ~2017 law, where Republicans stripped it down to only cover federally declared unique disaster situations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act

[hn_throwaway_99]

Thanks, I was unaware of that change. Note that limit largely just applies to personal property: "For tax years 2018 through 2025, individual taxpayers with theft losses are allowed a deduction if the loss is due to theft related to a transaction entered into for profit.", https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc515#:~:text=For%20tax%20year....

E.g. for financial fraud crimes, you much more than likely would still be able to take the loss.