Daily Dose of Common Sense

Here’s a clue, you tax deadbeats: First, pay your taxes. We do. What makes you think you’re above the law? Second, if you’re going to be a deadbeat, please go ahead and post pictures of your big new sailboat or share information about your new high-paying job on Facebook or MySpace. Why? Because the taxman has gotten smarter. Many state revenue agents have started to use social media to track down tax deadbeats.

State revenue agents have begun nabbing scofflaws by mining information posted on social-networking Web sites, from relocation announcements to professional profiles to financial boasts.

In Minnesota, authorities were able to levy back taxes on the wages of a long-sought tax evader after he announced on MySpace that he would be returning to his home town to work as a real-estate broker and gave his employer’s name. The state collected several thousand dollars, the full amount due.

I love it when authorities make arrests by using the criminals’ stupidity against them. Every one of these deadbeats deserve what they get. You can argue that we shouldn’t have to pay taxes, or that our tax rates are too high. But, one or two people shouldn’t be allowed to dodge. Pay up like the rest of us!

Photo courtesy of Flickr: Paul Keleher

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.