North Carolina Civil Forfeiture | Institute for Justice - IRS Seizes $107,000 From Innocent Small Business, Despite Recent Policy Changes Meant To Prevent Exactly This Kind Of Case:
"Lyndon McLellan has spent more than a decade running L&M Convenience Mart, a gas station, restaurant, and convenience store in rural Fairmont, North Carolina. Then, one year ago, without any warning, agents from the IRS seized his entire bank account, totalling more than $107,000. With that, Lyndon entered the upside down world of civil forfeiture, where the government can seize and keep ordinary Americans’ property without ever charging them with a crime.
"The IRS and Department of Justice are pursuing forfeiture of Lyndon’s money despite a recent policy change designed to prevent precisely these kinds of cases. In October 2014, the IRS announced that (absent 'exceptional' circumstances) it would pursue forfeiture in cases like Lyndon’s only where there was evidence that the money being seized was derived from illegal activity. The U.S. Department of Justice announced a similar policy change in March 2015....
"Under these new policies, the government should not be pursuing forfeiture of Lyndon’s bank account. But the government has refused to back down, and is actively pursuing the forfeiture of Lyndon’s money.
"Lyndon is unwilling to give the government a single penny of his hard-earned money. As he puts it, 'It took me 13 years to save that much money, and it took fewer than 13 seconds for the government to take it away.'"
Read more: http://ij.org/r/north-carolina-civil-forfeiture/
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"Lyndon McLellan has spent more than a decade running L&M Convenience Mart, a gas station, restaurant, and convenience store in rural Fairmont, North Carolina. Then, one year ago, without any warning, agents from the IRS seized his entire bank account, totalling more than $107,000. With that, Lyndon entered the upside down world of civil forfeiture, where the government can seize and keep ordinary Americans’ property without ever charging them with a crime.
"The IRS and Department of Justice are pursuing forfeiture of Lyndon’s money despite a recent policy change designed to prevent precisely these kinds of cases. In October 2014, the IRS announced that (absent 'exceptional' circumstances) it would pursue forfeiture in cases like Lyndon’s only where there was evidence that the money being seized was derived from illegal activity. The U.S. Department of Justice announced a similar policy change in March 2015....
"Under these new policies, the government should not be pursuing forfeiture of Lyndon’s bank account. But the government has refused to back down, and is actively pursuing the forfeiture of Lyndon’s money.
"Lyndon is unwilling to give the government a single penny of his hard-earned money. As he puts it, 'It took me 13 years to save that much money, and it took fewer than 13 seconds for the government to take it away.'"
Read more: http://ij.org/r/north-carolina-civil-forfeiture/
'via Blog this'
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