From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Tue Feb 12 2002 - 10:15:26 MST
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> >
> > Samantha Atkins wrote:
> > >
> > > So the US is no longer a free or capitalistic country since we
> > > now have thousands of selectively enforced federal "crimes" and
> > > dozens of excuses for forfeiture (forfeiture without due process
> > > where you have to prove they should give your property back).
> >
> > The forfeiture you speak of is specifically in the case where a person
> > has been convicted of a drug trafficking offense, where after criminal
> > conviction, their property is seized by the government in civil court
> > proceedings, on the basis that the property was purchased, in part or in
> > whole, by the proceeds of drug money, leaving the owner to prove that
> > they didn't use drug money to obtain the property.
>
> Not always. Not to go off on another whining-about-Florida-rant, but....
> :-)
>
> In Florida, carrying large sums of cash, say over $10,000, is legally
> defined as "suspicious". The police can and do seize such large amounts of
> cash under the assumption that it is drug money. The cash can be retrieved
> only if the person can prove where it came from and that it was obtained
> legally. Any unexplained cash that is not later retrieved is simply kept by
> the government.
Well, yes, of course. Not that I like it, but this is an entirely
rational argument to make, because if you kept that amount of cash
outside of a bank account, then you must be trying to hide it from the
government for some reason. At the very least you are trying to evade
tax laws, at worst you are engaging in illicit trade.
It is also rational to assume that if you got that amount of cash
legitimately, you should be able to demonstrate with receipt records who
you got it from and for what... at which point you'll be asked to pay
taxes on it... of course, the fact that many businesses deal in far
greater sums every day has no bearing... a legitimate business is
assumed to keep the sort of records that would show how the money was
earned ;)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 13:37:39 MST