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January 7, 2004
The IRS and Alticor
By QBlog in
Just saw this headline five minutes ago.
IRS wants Alticor records for tax probe
The federal government wants to know whether Alticor Inc.'s independent dealers and other customers are using offshore bank accounts to shield income and escape paying taxes.This may be old news for all I know but it's the first I've heard of it.The Internal Revenue Service is playing detective. It is seeking the identities of people who bought soap, vitamins, cosmetics or other Alticor products with credit cards drawn on accounts in the Bahamas, Barbuda, Antigua and the Cayman Islands.
UPDATE Apparently this is not old news. Alticor is one of 123 businesses that the Feds have requested records from (since 2002) in a national investigation of offshore credit-card abuse.
Comments
Alticor/Quixtar will not be directly effected in this since they are not accused of any wrongdoing. However, some of AmQuix's higher ups (diamonds) are most likely the ones the IRS is after. And if any one of the big pins get caught in a tax scam it may cause a few of their minions to rethink the big pins' integrity. Most will still follow blindly and shrug it off as the big, bad government again interfering in our lives, but finding out big pins scammed the government will hopefully cause some to wonder who else the big pins scammed.
Any chance this could verify Alticor sales numbers? For example if the IRS verifies that Alticor did infact have X billion in sales it would put a dent in the argument that some critics use, which is that Alticor's numbers aren't independently verified.
Just a thought, I'm not sure the investigation would go this deep, but I have never been able to find any third-party verification of Alticor/Quixtar numbers.
QBlog,
The headline is provacative, but the crux of the story is the IRS seeking individual records.
For those they may not click on the link, let me emphasize the following from the article.
"The IRS would not comment on why Alticor was selected. By requesting the information, the agency is not suggesting that the company has done anything wrong.
"As these companies conduct normal business with customers," the IRS said, "they are unaware whether someone even has an offshore credit card. ... This effort is aimed at individuals dodging their tax responsibilities."
Alticor will not object to the request for records.
"Once the summons is issued, we'll comply with it," a company lawyer, Bert Hultink, said Tuesday."
Posted by: David Robison | January 7, 2004 8:35 PM