family issue

[Guest]

Hi, 

If you found out that your family is engaged in breaking the law what would you do? I mean in the cases of like they have a personal business and say they've been splitting income between different family members for tax purposes, despite the fact that those family members are not actually working in the business and they have no income coming in. The tax records say that they had income...but the bank records do not. The family member is quite controlling, its not a good situation for the person who found out this was happening. And they don't know how to handle it. Confronting them didn't go ok. And its been going on for quite some time.


Getting away from the situation (their family) created a personal financial problem. So they can't afford a lawsuit. and it looks a lot like it might end up in a lawsuit if they try to report to authorities. They don't really have anyone else to rely on at this time. 

[mynewunit]

This is a complicated issue but there are a few basic answers. The actual solution is going to have a few parts. One part is legal. What do you have to do so you won't go to jail. Part two is what do you do about finances going forward. Part 3 is how do you act with family in the future.
I would take small legal steps. Look into filing bankruptcy. That would get you some legal and financial protection. Other items could be an order of protection. Even something as simple as identity theft protection. Most identity theft is family members. You could pay for a monthly system like life lock or other and have them help monitor anything going on and start legal action if needed.
What you are talking about is fraud. If they are submitting incorrect tax forms the IRS could look into it on your behalf. They are not in the business of starting or getting involved in family troubles. They can monitor use of your information and transactions between parties.
This is not legal advice because I am not a lawyer. But it might help your problem to investigate the options I mentioned and others. Then you can determine the benefits and risks of each decision.

[Guest]

Why am I going to jail? ...why is this a concern for ME?! I didn't do anything wrong.

Now you sound just like they do. "You report you'll go to jail too." This is why no one ever reports this kind of shit, btw. And what kind of stupid justice system would get the person REPORTING it to go to jail exactly? That's retarded.

confront the family...hahaha, sure, yea that went great! got me beat up and thrown out of the house. Spectacular.


Why am I going to jail for someone else's fraud?! Why is this MY problem to fix? And apparently risk jail over.

Who are you anyway? which of the speakers? id like to know who i'm talking to.

[guest]

hi, never mind on the who, I realised its linked to your twitter. Hi Brian!

Why am I going to jail for a problem I didn't create Brian? I had absolutely nothing to do with the business. I knew it existed but that's about it. There's no email in my name, there's no company website as far as I know, there's nothing at all. In fact I received LESS when they did the taxes, because they declared MORE income for me, at a time when I was barely making ends meet. My family paid off the difference because according to their accountant they declared a lot more income for me, in the absence of any proof that this income actually exists, which ended up with ME owing taxes. I just didn't know about it. I found out much later.

Why is this a legal issue for ME?? And please answer quickly if possible because this type of reaction is the norm far too often. And still baffles me. What is broken in everyone's heads that they don't get: you don't pick your family and you cannot control their actions, you just get to live with them? They're not the only ones doing this. Judging purely by the staggering amount of "don't report" conversations. And the staggering amount of haha, yea, we put dinner on the business that aren't REALLY business dinners too. HAhaha. Sure do you have employees which aren't real too...because that's a problem.

I am not the only one either. Technically my whole family are employees. None of them actually do any work for it. There's no correspondence, there are no contracts...there's nothing. As far as I can tell via my limited amount of accounting knowledge it helps in the "dividends" department. Somehow messing around with the amounts everyone earns and dividing it bw different ppl, helps out. I don't know how exactly.

I never signed any documents. I never saw any income slips. There was nothing. Ever. I just woke up one day in a nightmare and everyone said I can't do anything about it because I might go to jail instead. HOW. IS. THIS. POSSIBLE?

Thank you.

[guest]

AND why am I filling for bankrupcy and destroying my credit score, Brian? I am not bankrupt. I had jobs, I had a life. I still have some demented hope to own a house one day...declaring bankrupcy would significantly destroy that option wouldn't you say? I moved 5 times last year. Landlords aren't always nice, stable people. And going home is sometimes not much better. You find out the strangest things.

There is no "IF" Brian, I managed to snag a copy of the last set of documents in MY name which I didn't know about. There is NO IF. I am quite effective at gathering information and proof should there be any need for it. In fact I was quite effective at life in general until i found out someone imploded mine and that someone I am related to. Until I found out how much they lied and for how long while asking for things from me. Until I found out how deep any betrayal of trust goes and how much no one gives a f*ck, to use a colorful phrase.

The accountant in question stopped answering my emails about why she submitted income from a person with no consultation, and no signature and having never met them.

Chances are the former accountant did the same. They somehow both managed to submit my student status exemptions wrong but THIS they got spot on. There are only 2 accountants, I know how to find them both. I just don;t know why I am somehow risking jail over this? I don't know why anyone is blaming me over this, and I am super baffled as to why there is this giant loophole in the tax system which somehow everyone knows about and no one has fixed yet.

Odd. You know Brian, if you actually want to fix something its quite easy. Generally the simplest actions do it: consent, signature, make sure its a real person and that they KNOW they're in a business and receiving income (actually - in reality), as well as somehow a fulltime a student. Not that hard, wouldn't you say? Not hard at all to not be a complete scum of a human being. Not hard to answer emails. Not hard to submit student discounts, not hard to keep your client knowledgeable about what they do and do not qualitfy for. Not hard to just do your damn job. I spent my last year as a student eating at the Dollar store. You can actually make those twinkies last quite a bit, did you know? I can make a green pepper last a week if I cut it right. Did you know? But apparently I made over 35K the year before...weird.

Its usually best to do the right things when you're not the victim as well, too. Helps with the whole panic, pain, fear and financial issues thing. Don't worry about me. I am not a person, my life didn't implode, my personal connections are not ruined, everything I thought I knew and understood about my life and my role in this world did not go to shit overnight. I am just fine. What is most important is to make sure to protect everyone's else's feelings and interests so as to not upset too many people if my case were to draw attention to this giant loophole. Or at least so I hear.

Which is a problem wouldn't you say? Because assuming business works on a networking basis and you happen to know the people who are messing up and you find that information out...turns out a LOT of people are now somehow mad at you. And I do mean a LOT.

But why am I going to jail again?

[guest]

and the majority of fraud in not perpetrated by family members, in case you missed it most of the credit institutions were hit my hackers in 2016. So its going to be perpetrated by cyber criminals. Don't worry Im sure they'll target the ones with family issues first. Its probably easier to recruit them afterwards.

Who's idea was it to NOT pay attention to cyber security issues while compiling everyone's data in one place? Does it make it easier or harder to track fraud when there's LOTS of potential suspects and one target? In any other area of crime, does it make it easier or harder? Because its the same here. They always target the weakest targets. Always. The more weak targets there are the more lucrative business gets. Why aren't there regulations to ensure businesses use the latest patches and that security patches are always free (which they already are actually). Would the entire economy be crippled if everyones devices were secure? Would it put them in legal jeopardy? From what I hear: no.

The only small issue would be to make sure you don't say everything is secure when it actually is not and then prosecute people for having their accounts hijacked. But that's a separate issue. That has to do with having the knowledge to diagnose malware. And not blaming the victims. Any cyber security tech conference will inform you of the same thing. Heck TED talks will inform you of that. And in my humble opinion any system administrator, boss, etc who is made aware of cyber issues and who's first response is to try to blame the victim should be fired. They're either incompetent or malicious. Or getting special bonuses to say that. So corrupt.

I've been telling people I no longer use Fb. I don;t use bc of the recent legal issues and bc based on my experience with the platform its very frustrating to use. Its incredibly insistent on personal info and incredibly difficult on cyber issues.

Most of the people I talk to are afraid of hacks nowadays. A few of them think that if you're on fb and they get hacked they're avoiding personal culpability. Like if a malicious hacker tries to sink your business...which does happen...and you're on all these platforms, no one can come after you personally if a hack occurs. No. Not really. What it does is make it impossible to trace the source of the hack. What it does to keep linking the little icons which monitor traffic to everything is to enable anyone with the ability to introduce just a little bit of script onto every page which can be corrupted. Since everyone now knows that there's a privacy issue, no one will care. It makes it worse not better. No one HAS to tank your business they can just take it. You;ll still go personally bankrupt in a year. Especially if people think its your own fault for not securing things enough. The result will be the same. It will just be less messy on their end. And no one will open up an investigation on your end. It would be pointless. What are you going to say...all my electronics went crazy all at once? That's awfully subjective, It just sounds like your under a great deal of stress...and we all know we're deeply concerned with work life balance nowadays.

Solution: keep using it, just stop linking it to everything until the situation is resolved on their end. People can still find you accross all platforms they're just not all linked together. maybe at some point they'll wake up and stop trying to roll out dating spinoffs when they can't even secure the information they DO have already. Or maybe its just run by giant pervs, what do I know? Would I personally let my kid date on Fb, or tinder or whatever...no. Cuz you know, have some self respect. The world is full of people dieing to NOT respect you, its best it you don't help them along.

Simple solutions. Simple solutions work best. As long as people understand them. Because making decisions in the absence of any true understanding of the situation is a great way to make dumb ones. Keeping people ignorant ensures that a LOT of them make dumb ones. But understand this, I have zero power to make you do anything. Nor would I ever want that kind of ability. I just need the freedom to not use it myself and not be seen negatively for it. This is already affecting people. There;s already too much overreaction and not enough solutions. And this is a blog about accountability and responsibility. And I was giving a speech on why avoiding responsibility and encouraging other people to do the same is a bad thing long before I stumbled across Jocko's ted talks. They just didn't care and didn't want to hear it. And then got mad because I made a few good points. So. We do need to be able to have certain conversations, without everyone going "jail" for the wrong things and "not jail" for actual crimes. We need to tip the balance of this little equation away from people being afraid that if they report THEY will end up prosecuted. That's a common theme in a lot of areas lately. NOT talking about it, doesn't make the scary things go away. AT some point it has to get harder to manipulate the system then to work within it. AT some point we need to start connecting the dots and being able to say hey: that dumb guy over there, grabbing ass and acting like a pig and coming in to work late, he should be fired. Done. There are better people around looking for work. Simple. That's how you maintain standards.

That person with the horrible fucking family that they just found out about, who's life is currently in shambles, stop trying to f*ck up HER life (or HIS for that matter) because THEY messed up. Stop trying to beat her up, stop firing her for no reason for some imbecilic idea that this will make her come forward when she can't afford to go to COURT. Just STOP. Just stop. That person did nothing wrong. Destroying their lives will not fix anything. It does not empower victims to destroy their ability to earn a living or harass them or bully them. Thats the worst and most imbecillic logic I EVER encountered.

If anyone cared to look into this shit there are a lot of people exploiting the same loop holes. They don't care, they care to find leverage they don't give a single damn to solve anything. And that to me doesn't sound like justice. At all. If you want fewer predators around you need to change the environment, make it less hospitable for them. ANd then watch them go extinct. That's all. Im not going to start sleeping with my boss because he found out I'm struggling financially and have family problems at the moment. That's not ever happening. and yet the conversations keep happening.

That's reality Brian. People hate actually doing anything, They love pinning blame, they love finding reasons why things cannot ever be better and they hate anyone telling them otherwise. If a system would send ME to jail for reporting, there;s something wrong with that system which needs to change and you should change it now, from a position of strength, not after it happens, from a victim position.

If that is not correct and it depends on a number of factors please tell me what those are. The more informed I am the less people can scare me into NOT reporting. The more informed and financially independant I am the more I can afford to speak out on corruption issues. If a cop refuses to take down a fraud report that might be an issue. It might be a training issue or it might be a different sort of issue.

You guys have contacts in both the US and Canada. And this is definitely an issue which is affecting both...and every other country to be honest at the moment. I am both happy and willing to have these conversations. In fact I think we NEED to, that we all NEED to. SO everyone is more informed. I do not mean to come across as knowing everything, but when everywhere I turn the answers are at best rudimentary and at worst completely inadequate I start to wonder. It gives me an overblown impression of my own smartness on the topic.

Bad leadership creates more problems then you can possible imagine. If you tell me I"M going to jail bc of fraud and need to claim bankrupcy which will affect my credit score for years and prevent me from moving forward, Im going to tell you the truth: that is a pretty severe crack in the system. Through which many people will fall. I also don't believe you. I've never heard of anything like that until you mentioned it and they did. it sounds like something someone would tell a victim if they were trying to scare them into being silent. If its true...in my situation...I am deeply concerned and slightly alarmed. This is a good environment for fraud to thrive, not go extinct.

[guest]

and again, I heard that point often, you will end up in jail if you come forward. You are by no means the first person to "warn" me and since I've never had that any issues with the legal system, its hard for me to tell why everyone keeps warning me about the same things. There must be a reason. I am not trying to put you on the spot at all. but I really need to challenge this assertion. it cannot be true, in my case. Is it? If so, how can that be changed, because there isn't a single thing i can think of which i could have done better.

[guest]

loool, nevermind, there's no way to report it turns out. As in no one cares to take the report, lol.
its funny when you realise: nothing matters. Yep.

[guest]

loool, nevermind, there's no way to report it turns out. As in no one cares to take the report, lol.
its funny when you realise: nothing matters. Yep.