Restaurant Owners Use Zapper To Cook the Books 454
Hugh Pickens passes along a NYTimes report on software programs called "zappers," which allow even technologically illiterate restaurant and store owners to siphon cash from computer cash registers to cheat tax officials. In the old days, restaurant owners who wanted to cheat kept two sets of books. But because cash registers make automated records, hiding the theft requires getting into the machine's memory and changing that record. "...the Canadian province of Quebec may be the world leader in prosecuting zapper cases. Since 1997, zappers have figured in more than 230 investigations, according to the tax collecting body Revenu Québec... In making 713 searches of merchants, Revenu Québec found 31 zapper programs that worked on 13 cash register systems. Only two known zapper cases have been prosecuted in the United States... The cash register security industry is focused on protecting patrons and owners from theft by employees, which may be one reason so few zappers are uncovered in the United States. No one hires security experts to protect the government from devious businesses... As hard as zapper software is to detect, it is easy to make, said Jeff Moss, organizer of the annual hacker convention Def Con. 'If it runs on a Windows system and you are a competent Windows administrator, you can do it,' he said."
Physical access = carte blanche (Score:5, Insightful)
An idea for business owners (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:An idea for business owners (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the summary again. The OWNER install the zapper to hide revenues to save on taxes.
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know why you were modded insightful. This ought to have been modded -1 what the hell were you thinking.
The reason why the taxmen are greedy is because they know that a lot of people and businesses cook the books or otherwise defraud the government of taxes. The government spends a certain amount and in order to cover that there needs to be income. Ideally it comes from taxes but particularly in recent years there's a lot which is borrowed via bonds.
Now the problem is that restaurants and businesses which cheat on their taxes, not to mention individuals, get the same benefits that those that pay their share without having to pay all of the money due.
I'm not sure what the exact amount is, but the figure I've seen some fairly large numbers thrown around. I'm not sure what the real number is, I suspect that nobody really does, but it is a significant amount of money due to people like your former employers cheating the other taxpayers.
Re:Windows is not the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:An idea for business owners (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but the point the parent was making is that an unscrupulous EMPLOYEE could install a zapper to steal from the owner; it works both ways.
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact you suggested printing money to cover debts proves you wouldn't be one of those "best and brightest". Can you say rampant inflation? Study economics and history, particularly Weimar Germany. Beyond which, even if it wasn't bad economics it would be a poor idea- using taxes caps government spending by providing a maximum dollar amount, and makes the citizens aware of what it truly costs. These are good things.
The dirty little secret (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, yes, the dirty little secret of small business in America - everybody skims. Everybody. As my dad used to tell me, "If I didn't take cash off the top, I couldn't afford to stay in business. Nobody could. The taxes are too high." It wasn't a matter of wanting to cheat the tax man. It was a matter of survival for him.
I always make a point of paying in cash at local family-owned businesses whenever I can. Times are tough for those folks, and I can assure you that they appreciate a cash transaction.
Re:Physical access = carte blanche (Score:4, Insightful)
To cut fraud, cut taxes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:3, Insightful)
In a perfect world, all would pay their taxes fairly and the taxes paid would benefit the people as a whole.
In this world, it's not happening. How to fix that? mmmm, simple answer, start all over. Bring the entire political and economic system down and reboot so to speak.
Will that happen? Maybe, maybe not, and certainly not in my lifetime anyways.
But it is what would be required. A clean slate for all, a true bill of rights for human, clearly defined laws which are above any religious practices and a new economy which would be based on that new bills of rights.
What could this bill be made of? the right for all humans to food, water, shelter, education.
What would the economy be like? simple, money as we know it would cease to exist.
As you look upon today's world, could such a goal be achievable? could we actually migrate to such a new system? YES.
How? in stage, obviously, it would take several generations to transit towards such a goal in order for this to be accomplished.
Why? Because many of the new concepts require a relearning of how to live, what to expect, how to interact with others, etc... So, for this to happen, a major part would be in the education that we provide to ourselves and our children, etc.., as they are the ones would continue the process in order to make it happen.
Sounds utopian? Why Not!!
Anything is possible to those who wish it.
How could this be possible? when we (humanity) realize that we are all the same deep down and we all want peace and prosperity, regardless or politics and religious beliefs.
What's the biggest hurdle?
Re:It's illegal, but is it immoral? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really the only thing businesses owe goverment for is the use of their currency
And the roads to get suppliers and customers in and out of the place of business. And police to investigate shoplifting, burglary, vandalism, and other crimes that might happen.
Re:I've had requests to do this (Score:3, Insightful)
Darned right. I don't much care if retailers evade some sales taxes. But they can do their own cheating; if they want me to do it they better have some way of serving my time for me if and when they get caught.
Re:It's illegal, but is it immoral? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes it's immoral, it's also destructive, and that's why it can sometimes warrant imprisonment.
Re:The dirty little secret (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's illegal, but is it immoral? (Score:3, Insightful)
Trying to equate taxes with being mugged is pure idiocy.
Re:It's illegal, but is it immoral? (Score:1, Insightful)
Really the only thing businesses owe goverment for is the use of their currency
Oh, really? Exactly how does a business operate without:
- Use of public roads (shipping, etc.)
- Use of public utilities
- Use of land (including right-of-ways)
- Use of government services
- Use of the general public as labor
- Use of the general public as customers
And we're not even touching things like political incentives, enjoying the benefits of having a large military to keep other countries from simply taking their revenue. The government secures trade deals that allow businesses to stay competitive, and negotiates treaties so that local business trademarks and technology are stolen elsewhere.
To sum it up, quite frankly businesses owe EVERYTHING to government. Citizens can exist even without a government, corporations can not.
Just for the record, I really could NOT care LESS about small places cheating the tax-man. Really, there just isn't any give-a-shit in me when a Mom & Pop store squeezes an extra couple of bucks out of Uncle Sam. What DOES bother me, is when I see multi-billion dollar companies (like our local public electric company) have 7 YEARS of completely UNPAID back taxes. Or airlines getting bailed out from bankruptcy, etc.
Re:The dirty little secret (Score:4, Insightful)
"I don't cheat on my taxes, and I have to pay more because of the people who do."
That assumes tax rates have a direct relationship to anything other than what those imposing the taxes decide upon.
Re:The dirty little secret (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, yes, the dirty little secret of small business in America - everybody skims. Everybody. As my dad used to tell me, "If I didn't take cash off the top, I couldn't afford to stay in business. Nobody could. The taxes are too high." It wasn't a matter of wanting to cheat the tax man. It was a matter of survival for him.
I always make a point of paying in cash at local family-owned businesses whenever I can. Times are tough for those folks, and I can assure you that they appreciate a cash transaction.
I never had any problem staying in business without cheating.
My dad taught me honesty, maybe that's why.
Re:This is news in the US? Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Part of the reason that the U.S. economy has worked as well as it has, for as long as it has, is the relatively low level of corruption.
Trust breeds trust, and so on.
Re:It's illegal, but is it immoral? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like it, do something about it, evading taxes is not a valid form of protest unless you are doing so openly.
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:5, Insightful)
money as we know it would cease to exist
Money will never cease to exist as long as there is any kind of scarce goods/resource/property or skill that is needed by others. Sure, you can dream of a time when that isn't true, but it will remain a dream.
Still, there are many ways that economy could change in the future. A society can be run where everyone gets paid the same or based on effort put in. It may also be possible to remove common house hold items from the equation, and only require payment for "luxury items". Also, having a society where loans/borrowing is illegal is also possible, although that requires all expensive products (cars, houses) to be leased/rented instead of owned.
Sounds utopian? Why Not!!
Anything is possible to those who wish it.
Yes, too utopian. And no, anything isn't possible.
There is nothing wrong with utopian visions, but aiming towards them and thinking you will reach them with just wishes is the act of a fool.
A good visionaire needs three worlds. One is the utopian world that he wishes for. The second is the nightmare world where everything he implements fails. And the third is the real world where he tries to make progress towards the utopia while avoiding the nightmare scenarios.
Communists as well as libertarians both aim for the utopia while ignoring the nightmares, and that is a recipe for disaster.
Also, make sure that the utopia is actually an utopia that everyone wants. The communist utopia is far to restrained to be called an utopia. It is way too much about individual sacrifice, which is a very non utopian thing in my and many others meaning. I much prefer the social liberalism utopia.
How could this be possible? when we (humanity) realize that we are all the same deep down and we all want peace and prosperity, regardless or politics and religious beliefs.
Yup.
What's the biggest hurdle?
Us the people, which is part being lazy and part resisting and fearing change, and
those who right now, are in power and truly benefit from this unfair world as it is.
I definitly don't agree on laziness. Being lazy is a virtue. It is the lazy people who try to do more with less effort that make the world go forward.
It is the working ants that are satisfied working 40+ hours a week in stressful hierarcical systems, doing unproductive work (bueraucracy, marketing) spending borrowed money on shiny toys (that they only buy because other working marketing ants convince them to do so), while their bosses takes the big profits that are the real problem.
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:5, Insightful)
do you want to pay 100 billion dollars for 3 eggs?
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:1, Insightful)
The rich pay for over 80% of our taxes.
Sure you read about a few corporations buying mail boxes in Bermuda and claiming they are Bermadan but overall the rich pay more with things like AMT.
If not then we would all suffer form higher taxes. Trying to support your income and family financially does not excuse unethical and illegal behavior. If you end up in jail for tax evasion no employer will ever trust you or hire you again besides McD's so it makes since for yourself to be ethical and pay.
If you do not like what the government is doing then vote.
Re:Society != Government (Score:3, Insightful)
How you organise your government is none of my business, and frankly considering how awful it looks from the outside I have no interest in getting into a discussion about it.
We were talking about taxes as a general concept.
Re:Windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to see X terminals for POS systems in places like TGIF and even some small businesses.
I am guessing the reason to use Windows has to do with the fact everyone runs it. Programmers for windows are everywhere and so are windows experts to help with any strange issues the programmers encounter. Sure there are unix programmers but how much do they cost? What about the specialized hardware that pos systems use?
Last windows systems have bad memory management and application conflict issue over time known as Windows rot. POS systems only run 1 app and thats it and they are shut down everynight so no problems can ixist there. A multitasking multiuser os is probably overkill.
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:2, Insightful)
lol.. yeah, laziness has it's virtues, after all, it got the remote control invented uh? :)
I have a saying that I go by in my day-to-day life: plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Aiming for utopia, is good, but obviously, there would be many hurdles, and I for one, can understand that and obviously if I were to elaborate further my ideas, you must always consider what can go wrong and ensure it either doesn't happen, or at least, have a plan for it.
To me, that's project management 101.
Re:It's illegal, but is it immoral? (Score:5, Insightful)
Educated work force, power, phone, a military to avoid invasions, and a government to support free trade.
Yes these are very expensive and roads cost A TON of money. The government pays verizon to put in your phone lines and subsidizes them to a certain extent.
It costs $7,000 per year on average for each school aged child to stay in school. Multiple that by 12?
Without electricity, roads, and a workforce that can read and write you are screwed if you own a business.
Yes taxes are a necessary evil and anyone who uses governmental services needs to pay and corporations need to. I am conservative myself on this issue but realize its unrealistic to have businesses have a free ride when they use government the most.
Re:Public goods (Score:3, Insightful)
Then who is going to voluntarily pay?
I wouldn't and neither would anyone else. Public goods unfortunately are goods that can't be privatized as if you paid for a military then I wouldn't have to and would enjoy the same benefit.
If you have an issue then you can vote. If you do not like the candidates then get involved in the primaries and form groups to help raise funds with the candidates who agree with you. I read about many libertarians here who like ron paul and I have a feeling your views would probably match his.
Re:The dirty little secret (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course there is a relationship.
Tax rates arent made up just for fun, they are set so that there is a certain amount of money out the other end. If the people making the decision decide that they need X-billion dollars from taxes they calculate that the tax rate has to be Y.
If it then turns out that most people cheat on their taxes, the rate Y doesn't result in the X-billion outcome, so the rate Y has to be raised. So everyone gets a higher tax rate. Those that don't pay their full tax rates don't pay as much more as those that do pay the full amount.
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on what's being "purchased".
Many people see tax evasion as a victimless crime, or are happy to do it because they don't like the government. Others, who may realize it's wrong, justify it by telling themselves that "everyone else is doing it".
Now if you were talking about crimes which we all can agree are immoral - murder, rape, Microsoft, etc - then you'd have a point. But when it comes to tax evasion, EVERYONE has their price.
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:3, Insightful)
using taxes caps government spending by providing a maximum dollar amount, and makes the citizens aware of what it truly costs.
You must not live in the U.S.
So what's the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the past, dishonest restaurant owners kept two sets of books. Do you imagine police often found that second set? Nope. Isn't today's software component more easily detectable?
Re:Yeah, and we should be surprised of this becaus (Score:2, Insightful)
People on welfare (Social Security) do go out to eat.
Yes, and some trade food stamps for cash to buy liquor and some fake disabilities and lots of other things that people who are dependent upon others for their survival shouldn't do. There are also people who barely use the system - taking just enough to survive until they can get off it. They sacrifice their own food so their kids can eat. The point is there's a huge gamut of people using this "government money" - and the person coughing it up has NO CONTROL over which type of person receives the benefit. I don't want someone who is taking money from me to survive to be out at restaurants ordering food. That's what people with disposable income do, people who have extra money to waste. But I very much do want to help support those who are actively working to better their situation. The problem is that I can't trust the government to make sure those people get my money.
People in this country are extremely giving of the money they have left even after the government takes their share. There is NO valid reason to suppose that these extremely giving people would turn callous and cruel if they had 35% more of the money THEY EARNED. Then, the people who actually worked for the money they're giving away can choose who receives the benefits of their largesse, at least in part. But then we probably wouldn't end up with expensive marine biology research centers in Idaho or farmers getting paid to ruin our economy by growing corn for ethanol, etc. If taxes were 1%, maybe I'd support them, but I'm with the Founding Fathers on this one. You remember them, the guys who fought a whole war and started a whole new country over a raise from 1% to 2% direct income tax. We routinely pay 35-40%, and what kind of return do we get? Negligible. Screw that.
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:5, Insightful)
Minimum wage laws generally only result in layoffs and law-breaking. They also make it much more difficult for students and youth to find part-time and summer jobs, which not only deprives them of spending money and experience, but also seems to correlate with increased youth crime and delinquency.
And this experience is based on which time when there was a high minimum wage in the US? This is theory based on a complete lack of research and encourage by big companies crying poor.
Most sensible countries (i.e.: any "western" country apart from the US) have tiered minimum wages. So when you need a school kid to fill in on the weekend and cover vacation leave of your full timers, you can pay a low wage. But when you need reliable adults to work full-time jobs, you are going to have to pay adult wages.
Did I mention those countries all have lower youth delinquency rates than the US too? An I certainly never had any trouble finding work for spending money and experience as a kid! In fact, I don't know any kid who wanted a saturday or summer job that was unable to get one.
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah and most "sensible" countries also have a 50-60% tax rate
You are quoting the top bracket, most people are not in that and actual tax rate is much lower. The interesting number is tax as percentage of GDP and the US is quite low, but not *that* much lower.
The evidence is in the fact that standards of living for the majority of people in those countries is higher and with fewer people below the poverty line.
It also pays for things like university education, health care, pensions and such that most people in the US have to shell out for themselves.
So there is a lot more to it that just saying that the taxes are too high - governments generally do use these to pay for things that benefit the tax payers. One could argue that as percentage of revenue the US is a lot more squandering than most other countries - in things like defense spending, especially the past few years!
Plus there is the issue of economies of scale - 300 million is a hell of a lot of tax payers!
It's not how much tax you pay - it's about how much value you get out of it. And on that count most high-tax european countries are doing quite well.
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:3, Insightful)
The bottom 40% don't even pay enough income tax to cover the benefits which they get back in the form of services.
Um, duh? That's kind of the point of progressive income tax.
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:5, Insightful)
In Germany, the minimum wage for most people is unemployment benefits! There is no point in trying to pay someone less then what they would get for sitting at home. I have met people there that had been unemployed for years because they could not find work in their chosen profession. ("Wildlife manager" - talk about a niche!)
Read the parent, he made the comment that high minimum wage in the US would lead to higher youth unemployment and higher delinquency. I was merely debunking that claim.
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo.
The rich control 99% of our wealth, yet they pay ONLY 80% of our taxes. Please account for this remaining 19%.
If it means I'd be paying something like 5% of what I'm paying now, by any and all means I want a level playing field here. We're talking a 19% increase for them and a 95% decrease for everyone else.
That's a tad bit lopsided, no?
I'm running late for work, I'll provide references later or you can use google and wiki yourself to find them, they're everywhere.
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:4, Insightful)
For one, most taxes aren't based upon "wealth." They're usually event based. Which is why lowering the capital gains tax increases revenue, often dramatically. It reduces the disincentive to hold onto investments, and creates more taxable exchanges.
Re:I have to pay more because people cheat on tax (Score:3, Insightful)
"I don't cheat on my taxes, and I have to pay more because of the people who do."
That assumes tax rates have a direct relationship to anything other than what those imposing the taxes decide upon.
So you think your government is hoarding your cash and not using it to pay for public services? Tax rates relate to how many pay because government decides not what percentage of peoples wages it wants but how much money they want [to spend on services, etc.].
[oversimplified] All the departments submit their budgets, add it up, get an astronomical sum, go back and tell them to cut it by X%, new sum is Y Trillion. Look at the shortfall versus last years gross tax income, add on a couple of percentage points to fuel, tobacco, low-rate income tax, inheritance tax, stamp duty ... "Bob's your Uncle" ... Y Trillion.
This year, 6% don't pay 50% of their taxes. You borrow and then next year bump all those percentages some more to pay for the 3% shortfall, +loan and maintenance.
Re:Warren Buffet pay 25%, his gardener pays 35% (Score:3, Insightful)
> The rich control 99% of our wealth, yet they pay ONLY 80% of our taxes.
Please cite? In particular, make sure that both statistics are using the same definition of "the rich".
Last I'd checked, the net effect of our super-complicated personal income tax system was in fact pretty much equivalent to a flat tax on wealth. I believe the Wikipedia articles on the US tax system has some relevant numbers. It certainly used to.