IRS Wants a Cut of Stolen Loot

Could There Be a New Market for 'Tax Accountants for Thieves?'

It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine what is real in this world. I came across the below tweet today and thought, surely, this isn’t real.

🌴 Josh Lekach 🌴 @JoshLekach

This is real

December 27th 2021

5,148 Retweets28,664 Likes

But it is real. Today, the first day of 2022, turns out to be just as wacky for me as 2020 & 2021. Straight from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website, it summarizes the important tax changes that took effect in 2021 and the associated rules for filing your income. It discusses many kinds of income and explains whether they’re taxable or nontaxable. Under “Other Income,” we see that “Stolen Property” appears. But it’s not about how to report that your property was stolen, which would be any normal person’s assumption. On the contrary, it’s about how to report the property you stole as income.

Stolen property.

If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.

I’m seeing it with my own eyes and I still can’t believe this is real. But then again, the vampires at the IRS leave no blood behind.

Can you blame them? The IRS is in the game of theft themselves, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that they want a cut of your stolen loot, too!

A downtown Minneapolis man was just sentenced to more than eight years in prison for burning, looting, and damaging businesses during civil unrest in late August of 2020. Too bad it wasn’t 2021, where he could properly file the spoils as income. And if only he lived in California where they have the “Zero Bail” rule, he could have been right back out on the street collecting more swag for the tax agents. If you keep the IRS fat and happy, you’ll likely have no problems.

Who knows, maybe this will open up a whole new market for tax attorneys and accountants. I can see it now: a billboard advertisement that reads,

Unsure about how to file your income taxes for those sweet, shiny new rims you jacked from that fly Benz last night?!

Call Tony at ‘CPAs for Thieves!’ He’ll set you straight and ensure you’re in complete tax compliance.

1-800-CPA-4LOOT.

Photo by Will Hart