Clever, other than the getting caught bit

[Demosthenes]

Webhick, what does "Add friend" do?

Adds them to your control panel so you can easily see if they're online and quickly send them private messages. If the template supports it (which I can't remember configuring it to do so, but will see about including it in the revision), it will also highlight their posts on the forum.

Learn something new everyday.

[The Observer]

Thank heavens that there isn't a "Maim or Kill Poster" function.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Perhaps one of the more learned IRS lien experts can address this, but it would seem to me that the answer is to simply file lien releases electronically.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Thank heavens that there isn't a "Maim or Kill Poster" function.

Ah, but there is.

Webhick implemented it after my Cattle Prod Rev 1.03a couldn't be upgraded for the last forum update. I've found Maim Poster version 2.0 release b, build 00033 to be far more flexible than Cattle Prod, but it takes some getting used to (there's no sound). And thus far I've been unwilling to try the latest beta version of Kill Poster, although of late I have been tempted.

[The Observer]

Perhaps one of the more learned IRS lien experts can address this, but it would seem to me that the answer is to simply file lien releases electronically.

With the recorder's office or local court house? What do you do in the case where the court house recording office has failed to enter the 21st century and does not have electronic filing available? And we won't even begin to discuss about getting every single recording office to agree on adopting one standard for across the country for transmission, including software, hardware, and security of the transmission.

[Burzmali]

I would say that if a significant number of county reporting offices haven't entered the 21st century there is a bigger problem than fake liens. If backwater Africa has more advanced technology than your county, you really should consider moving.

[The Observer]

I would say that if a significant number of county reporting offices haven't entered the 21st century there is a bigger problem than fake liens. If backwater Africa has more advanced technology than your county, you really should consider moving.

Really? How will a county citizen moving answer the good Judge's question about the IRS recording lien releases electronically? What about citizens who can't afford to move? How many citizens will have to move before the county updates to 21st technology? And will them moving also address the issue of whether the county will adapt to a uniform standard form of electronic transfer, preferably one that will accomodate IRS electronic transfers?

I know you may find it hard to believe but many recorder offices still function on the prinicple of the *actual* document being physically recorded as opposed to a electronic facsimile being sent in from somewhere else.

[.]

click "Add foe"

Thank you, Ms. Hick.

[Burzmali]

Really? How will a county citizen moving answer the good Judge's question about the IRS recording lien releases electronically? What about citizens who can't afford to move? How many citizens will have to move before the county updates to 21st technology? And will them moving also address the issue of whether the county will adapt to a uniform standard form of electronic transfer, preferably one that will accomodate IRS electronic transfers?

I am suggesting that you move long before a lien exists. Though, if you live in a county that can't afford to buy the recording office a computer, you aren't likely to be on the top of the IRS's hit list.

Honestly, can you name a county where the recording office doesn't have access to computer? I'm not saying that paper should go away and a computer is 100% necessary, an 16 alphanumeric code could even be checked via phone is needed, are there recording offices that don't have phones?

I know you may find it hard to believe but many recorder offices still function on the prinicple of the *actual* document being physically recorded as opposed to a electronic facsimile being sent in from somewhere else.

Who said that would go away? I am saying that a process to VERIFY the document's validity should be provided online.

[LaVidaRoja]

I live in Valencia County, New Mexico, where the County recorder still records, files and retains paper documents. When I last had access to DataQuick (2006), Valencia County was NOT accessable on-line.

There are many small counties (under 50,000 population) in this country that simply do not have the resources to have on-line records.

[Burzmali]

I live in Valencia County, New Mexico, where the County recorder still records, files and retains paper documents. When I last had access to DataQuick (2006), Valencia County was NOT accessable on-line.

There are many small counties (under 50,000 population) in this country that simply do not have the resources to have on-line records.

I'm not saying that the records need to be online, only that the recorder have access to a computer to check the validity of a document.

[The Observer]

I am suggesting that you move long before a lien exists. Though, if you live in a county that can't afford to buy the recording office a computer, you aren't likely to be on the top of the IRS's hit list.

Well, if they have any smarts about them, they would do that once they knew that the taxes were accruing and not wait for the inevitable. But 99% of the people don't do that - even the Browns weren't smart or ambitious enough to dump their property and run. So that really has nothing to do with whether there is an adequate way to verify lien releases.

Honestly, can you name a county where the recording office doesn't have access to computer? I'm not saying that paper should go away and a computer is 100% necessary, an 16 alphanumeric code could even be checked via phone is needed, are there recording offices that don't have phones?

I own property in Cotton County, Oklahoma. The county still issues property tax bills without a computer and the last time I checked, recordations were done by hand in a ledger index and the filed documents kept in a cabinet. Due to the small tax base of the county and its rural population, it is unlikely they will every be able to afford to upgrade to a system that would allow for electronic transmission of documents.

And again, you are going to get several thousand recorders' offices who are going to tell you that it isn't their responsibility to *verify* if a lien release is valid - and they are right. It isn't in their job description. And the IRS can't make them do so.

And the IRS can't make them adapt an uniform standard of electronic transmission. And the IRS can't make them move into the 21st century if they don't want to. So please stop explaining what the recorders' offices could do to make things better and start explaining how the IRS can make them do what you propose.

Which means your process is back to the title companies and lenders going back to the IRS to verify if the lien release is valid. And they still will have to doublecheck and deal with occasional crashed servers and occasional transmission errors and increased costs, all to avoid the once-in-four-years of a forged lien release. I don't think they are going to view this as beneificial to them. They are going to view as more government red tape that punishes them.

I understand your focus is on the prevention side of things and that is all and well. But your average TP does not want to do overt acts that puts them square in the sights of a DOJ prosecution. So they are not likely to listen to a promoter who essentially tells them to impersonate a federal employee and forge a document, then publicly record it where it can be used as Exhibit A in their trial.

[Burzmali]

So, back to my original point. The weakness exists, but the government (on all levels, not just the IRS) would rather prosecute offenders than work to fix it. Speaking as a person who handles returns for a private sector firm, if my company ships one defective unit worth $1.50 to a customer, they are within they're right to ask for us to submit mountains of evidence that the none of our stock share the defect and that we are doing all we can to fix the problem that caused it. Rarely do we get the customer that accepts "well, it only happens every four years" as an excuse.

[The Observer]

Lots of weaknesses exist in any organization and it boils down to an issue of risk analysis to determine what the long-term loss is going to be. In your example, your executives have probably justified your returns program on the basis that refusing to honor a defective unit, no matter whose fault it is, is not good for customer satisfaction and attracting repeat business.

But if we want to get picky about the need for organizations to address potential weaknesses that exists under their control, how about we address the problem that faces every city in the United States: stop signs?

See, the weakness is that cities rely on drivers to voluntarily obey the stop sign. But as you and I well know, some people don't obey the stop signs. They do rolling stops, they fail to stop completely behind the intersection line, or completely run the sign and enter the intersection. And I know you would agree that on occasion this results in accidents that cost a lot of money and time in terms of property damage, medical care, funerals, investigations and insurance claims. The problem is that the cities are not doing more to prevent this weakness in the system. It is obvious that more is needed to prevent drivers from disobeying the stop sign. Cities should be erecting crash-proof barriers at every intersection that are operated by computers; these barriers would raise and lower to regualate movement of traffic. By implementing this measure, we would be preventing all of these accidents in the future and the costs associated with them.

[Burzmali]

Taking things to extremes to prove a point isn't a sound argument. Why bother enforcing anything? Since someone will always circumvent the system, it is cheaper to just to the bare minimum.

The IRS knows they have a problem with people impersonating them (according the the website you provided, this problem was documented in 2004). One manifestation of this problem is fake lien releases (one of the 4 examples the report listed was a case were a CPA forged a release).

In every sector of private industry that I am aware of, that's enough to get a handful of people in a room to examine the problem and publish some recommendations. Did any of that happen in 2004?

[Demosthenes]

The IRS doesn't have the resources to go after huge schemes costing US taxpayers multi-millions. Focusing on a miniscule problem that's been around at least 15 years but has gotten no traction would be a fantastic waste of the IRS' already stretched resources.

[Burzmali]

How does an investigation that lasts 3 years and results in a 5 year imprisonment cost less than a handful of meetings?

Edit: Maybe if the resources were spent preventing crimes from occurring instead of cleaning up after them...

[Demosthenes]

How does an investigation that lasts 3 years and results in a 5 year imprisonment cost less than a handful of meetings?

Meetings don't solve problems. Solutions solve problems. When you have a system that is horrifically outdated trying to work with 6,000 systems (couty recorders) that range from archaic to modern, the solution costs a hell of a lot more than a few prosecutions.

Edit: Maybe if the resources were spent preventing crimes from occurring instead of cleaning up after them...

Great, and they should focus their crime prevention dollars on big-ticket crimes, not stuff that's so rare it doesn't even cause a blip on the screen.

Why are you so hung ho on this particular scheme?

[Burzmali]

Well, if TIGTA saw fit to mention it, it most have some presence, if only a minor one.

Solutions might solve problems, but meetings generate solutions. If I saw a 2 page white paper that acknowledged the weakness, tossed out a few solutions with price tags, and ended with a statement that "at this time, none of these are cost effective solutions" I'd be satisfied.

In general, the government tends to use the big stick of punishment to solve problems where addressing the source of the problem is often a better idea. At best, the government tries to "make an example" out of people to prevent others from doing the same thing.

I don't know. I picked on this issue because it seemed like a weakness that is easy to exploit and has a reasonable likelihood of going undetected. The solution may be worse than the problem, but even after TIGTA warned the IRS that this might be a problem, I figure that someone over at the IRS would at least formally document the problem. That's the kind of behavior you just don't see in the manufacturing sector.

[Demosthenes]

The IRS isn't a private company. They are an enormous bureacracy (100,000 employees) with uneven management, goals that fluctuate at Congress' whim, a horribly outdated computer system, a stagnant budget that doesn't improve when they collect more taxes (no incentive).