Treasury casts a wide net under Patriot Act

[babylonsister]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16889790.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Treasury casts a wide net under Patriot Act

By Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Under a little-noticed provision in the USA Patriot Act, the Treasury Department has ordered severe restrictions against foreign banks or countries for reasons beyond the stated purpose of the law and without producing evidence.

Section 311 of the 2001 Patriot Act was drafted to halt terrorist financing and money laundering, but the Bush administration has used it against an alleged source of terrorist financing - a bank in Syria - only once. The Treasury has invoked it more often to punish alleged human-rights abuses or offshore banking havens.

Although Congress has yet to examine the Treasury's use of Section 311, the provision is likely to add to the controversy over other sweeping powers the executive branch of government acquired under the Patriot Act. According to a recent audit, the FBI used the act illegally to obtain personal information about U.S. citizens, and the administration has agreed to abandon a provision that it used to replace eight U.S. attorneys for what Democrats charge were partisan political reasons.

"It becomes a form of expanding executive power that's difficult to check," said Shayana Kadidal, staff attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, a rights organization that's critical of many Patriot Act provisions.

Supporters view Section 311 as a diplomatic sledgehammer that gets results. Critics - many of whom refused to speak on the record, saying they feared retribution - complain that the provision denies suspects due process and presumes that the accused are guilty rather than innocent.

Through Section 311, the Treasury doesn't have to tell accused banks or countries what threat they allegedly pose to the U.S. financial system, and the Treasury has the power to act as both prosecutor and judge.

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[no_hypocrisy]

1. Does Section 311 have any impact with Swiss banks? I thought

they were legendary with their secrecy and discretion concerning their customers.

[babylonsister]

2. Good question I don't have an answer to. I don't know if

the Swiss would honor anything the US asked of them.

[razors edge]

3. but I thought we could

just trust them, they seem like nice boys, they used to cut the grass.:sarcasm:

30-Year IRS Agent Arrested for Tax Fraud

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/03/30year_irs_agen.html

Harry Willner, an IRS agent for over 30 years, was arrested yesterday on tax fraud charges. Prosecutors allege that he and others dodged taxes by claiming that their income was offset by deductions belonging to a company he operated out of his home. From the Associated Press:

ederal prosecutors said Willner, 59, engaged in the scheme while working as a revenue agent with the large and mid-size business unit of the IRS in New York. They said he carried out the fraud by trying to create tax loopholes while purportedly working as an officer at an advertising business, NIA Advertising Inc., whose address was the same as his residence's. The government said Willner claimed that NIA loaned a company, Royal Magazine Inc., $849,000 from 1998 through 2001 but provided no evidence of a written contract or agreement to verify the debt. Willner then claimed a "bad debt" reduction on NIA's corporate tax return of more than $758,000, though he could not take advantage of much of it because the income of the business was minimal, the indictment said. Afterward, Willner tried to get an accountant to help him get other taxpayers to funnel their income through his advertising business so they could take advantage of the large debt, according to the indictment.