A few weeks ago FAIL blog posted a picture of what they called a "tax advice fail". It was about how to report the value of items that you have stolen and which are now in your possession. The blog post from FAIL didn’t quote a source so you might think that this advice came from somebody who had misinterpreted the tax rules. After all, there are clear IRS rules about your stolen property; surely the information that was posted on the blog was written by someone who was reversing that information incorrectly.

Nope.

If you do a little bit of digging what you will discover is that the information on the FAIL blog comes word for word from the IRS itself. That’s right, the IRS rules about this are:

"STOLEN PROPERTY: If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner."

This is filed under "other income" in the rules about reporting on your taxes. So, no it’s not okay to steal. However, if you do steal, you need to let the IRS know so that you can pay taxes on the items that you stole. However, if you return the item to the original owner on the last day of the year that you stole it, then you don’t have to report this income.

Hm. So the moral of this law is to do your stealing of high-value items early on in the year, use them and make sure to return them in December so you don’t have to report yourself to the IRS.

Related posts:

1. Don’t Steal from the Pawn Shop
2. Blagojevich: I’m the Victim of Plot to Raise Taxes
3. A lesson in criminal justice: Don’t Steal from the Cops
4. Harry Reid on Voluntary Taxes in US
5. FAIL Shirt Blog Makes Fun of Stupid People

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