IRS Seizes $107,000 From Innocent Small Business, Despite Recent Policy Changes | Page 2 | The Compost Bin | Forums

A lot of business's will just do weekly deposits instead of daily depending how far their bank is and if they are a one man operation

He was in trouble for a stupid law that is out of control imo

maybe things will change

A veteran of three combat tours in Iraq, local gun shop owner Andrew Clyde has chosen a new battle — advocating for change in federal asset forfeiture laws.

Clyde, a U.S. Navy veteran and owner of Clyde Armory in Athens, began a public phase of his campaign with his Wednesday testimony in front of the oversight subcommittee of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, where he recounted the Internal Revenue Service seizure of nearly $950,000 taken in at his business.

Clyde’s story began as the 2012 presidential campaign, and the eventual re-election of President Barack Obama, dominated the headlines. Clyde Armory in Athens, like other gun shops across the country, saw a spike in business as people concerned about the future of the Second Amendment stocked up on guns and ammunition.

At Clyde Armory, much of that spike in business was conducted in cash, and that cash was being deposited regularly in the business’ bank account. Those deposits were always less than $10,000, Clyde said, because his business insurance policy only covered off-premises losses up to $10,000.

Unfortunately for Clyde, that limit also attracted the attention of federal authorities, as a result of the 1982 federal Bank Secrecy Act and subsequent federal regulation.

Aimed at ferreting out potential drug transactions, the Bank Secrecy Act requires banks to report transactions in excess of $10,000 to federal authorities.

As word of this limit spread, and people began working around it, Congress enacted a 1986 law making it illegal to structure transactions to avoid triggering the Bank Secrecy Act.

In 2000, Congress again addressed asset seizure in the Civil Asset Reform Act, but even that wasn’t sufficient to keep Clyde’s bank deposits from attracting federal notice. He was accused of “structuring” — a willful attempt to arrange his bank deposits to keep them under the $10,000 threshold.

In April of 2013, the Internal Revenue Service seized the nearly $950,000 in the gun shop’s bank account under terms of asset seizure law that allow such seizures on the basis that the funds could be tied to criminal activity, even when there is no evidence of such activity.

The case wound up in federal court, and after legal fees and the eventual surrender of $50,000 to the IRS to bring the matter to an end, nearly $150,000 had been carved out of the $950,000 seizure.

“I did not serve three combat tours in Iraq only to come home and be extorted,” Clyde told the subcommittee on Wednesday, calling his decision to forfeit $50,000 to the IRS “a tactical retreat.”

Clyde was joined at the hearing by two other business people — Randy Sowers, a Maryland creamery owner, and Jeff Hirsch, a New York tobacco and candy distributor — who also lost thousands of dollars for allegedly “structuring” deposits.

In an interview Thursday, Clyde said that advocating for changes in asset forfeiture law “is going to be my lifetime crusade.”

At Wednesday’s hearing, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told subcommittee members that since October the agency has been seizing assets only after finding “probable cause” that bank depositors are engaging in actual criminal activity beyond any alleged “structuring” of deposits.

That change doesn’t satisfy Clyde, who noted Thursday that whatever IRS policy might be, the problematic asset forfeiture statutes remain on the books.

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., a local congressman who has been working with Clyde in conjunction with the asset forfeiture issue, said Thursday that the bipartisan incredulity expressed at Wednesday’s subcommittee hearing — Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said “it is wrong to, without any criminal evidence, seize somebody’s property” — is an indication that Congress could act soon to change asset forfeiture laws.

“Sometimes, it takes a shocking case” like Clyde’s to spur bipartisan congressional action, Collins said, because it so clearly “goes against the very premise” of this country’s principles.

For his part, Clyde had high praise Thursday for former U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, to whom he first brought his concerns, and for Collins and Rep. Jody Hice, another Republican area congressman, for their support in his effort to change asset forfeiture laws.

“It’s not just me,” Clyde said. But, he added, “I get to be the point of the spear.”

http://onlineathens......et-seizure