The legalities of disappearing

Factual Questions
1

Hypothetically, imagine someone is utterly free of debt. No mortgage, rent paid a month in advance, no car payments or credit card debt, etc.

Say this person wants, for whatever reason, to disappear. They quit their job, close their bank account and take out everything in cash, get rid of all their possessions, and move, say, across the country. They tell no one that they’re doing it, they just leave.

Would they be in any violation of typical American laws? I’m not sure why they would, but I imagine that if someone filed a missing person report and then they found the person in question, could they be charged with anything? Could the filer of the report be charged with anything?

2

There is a constitutionally protected right to travel. There is nothing that I’m aware of that requires the exercise of that right to be accompanied by the filing of an itinerary.

But really, shouldn’t you have learned this already in ninja school?

As long as the filer of the missing persons report did not file it under any false pretenses (say, with an eye to committing insurance fraud) then I can’t think of any charges that could be filed there either.

3

IANAL, but they’d still need to pax taxes. Even moving abroad won’t exempt them from federal taxes.

4

[QUOTE=alphaboi867]
IANAL, but they’d still need to pax taxes. Even moving abroad won’t exempt them from federal taxes.
[/QUOTE]

They’d only have to pay taxes if they have income.

5

[QUOTE=Otto]
They’d only have to pay taxes if they have income.
[/QUOTE]
Question: Do you still have to file your tax forms, but with an income of $0.00 or anything?

6

I’ve moved and not told anyone about it. I wanted to start anew, away from people who didn’t have my best interest at heart. One person tracked me down after a year, so I moved again.
I was still “on the grid” in that I paid taxes, kept my nursing license current, had a driver’s license, etc.

Even someone who’s married can leave without notifying their spouse.

7

[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
Question: Do you still have to file your tax forms, but with an income of $0.00 or anything?
[/QUOTE]

There are times when you have to file even if your income is zero. To claim a refund, file an exemption for selling your home, etc.

But for the most part if your income is below certain limits or zero, and you have no special circumstances, you don’t need to file at all.

8

[QUOTE=Otto]
There is a constitutionally protected right to travel. There is nothing that I’m aware of that requires the exercise of that right to be accompanied by the filing of an itinerary.

But really, shouldn’t you have learned this already in ninja school?

As long as the filer of the missing persons report did not file it under any false pretenses (say, with an eye to committing insurance fraud) then I can’t think of any charges that could be filed there either.
[/QUOTE]

They generally skip the legalities in Ninja School. :wink:

That’s a good point about the right to travel, and now that I think about it, one could probably make a case for the right to privacy in this situation as well.

9

Furthermore, AFAIK there aren’t any practical consequences to not filing if you are owed money: in my irresponsible youth I once filed a tax return two years late (I knew I’d overpaid a couple of hundred bucks) and they sent me my check.

10

[QUOTE=Manda JO]
Furthermore, AFAIK there aren’t any practical consequences to not filing if you are owed money: in my irresponsible youth I once filed a tax return two years late (I knew I’d overpaid a couple of hundred bucks) and they sent me my check.
[/QUOTE]
Usually there are no dire consequences, but there can be.

If you had income, but your withholding was more than amount of your taxes, then you have a refund coming. If you don’t file for it, you don’t get it, obviously. You figure the small amount of the refund is not worth my time to file, and besides, I paid my taxes, they can’t touch me, right?

But there is also a penalty for not filing when you are supposed to, not just penalties for not paying.

So if you had taxable income above the minimum for your filing status and situation, you can be penalized for not filing even if you have a refund coming. In some cases, this penalty is waved, especially if you file within a year or two before they ding you on it. In some cases, the penalty can be more than the refund and you wind up owing money and not getting the refund at all.

11

[QUOTE=NinjaChick]
They generally skip the legalities in Ninja School. :wink:

That’s a good point about the right to travel, and now that I think about it, one could probably make a case for the right to privacy in this situation as well.
[/QUOTE]

You’re absolutely right. If a wife wants to hide from an abusive husband, she has the right to do so.

Recently, here, a woman disapeared on her way home from the store. her husband begged the police to look for her. They did, rather half-heartedly. After 7 days, and no activity on her credit cards or bank account, they pinged her cell phone. They found her down an embankment still alive, trapped in her car.
Her husband was livid, saying if they’d pinged the phone sooner, she wouldn’t have had to go through all the suffering she did. The problem was, the police were prevented from researching her phone, because of privacy laws.

12

Sorry about the slight hijack but I know from personal experience that you really should file your tax forms even though you don’t have to do so. It won’t take more than a few minutes to file a one page low or no income form and it can save you a world of trouble down the road.

Back when I was in college, there was one year where I didn’t earn enough to pay and I had no withholding so I didn’t file. A couple of years later I got fined $500 for tax evasion. I was able to get the fine waived or revoked or whatever but it took several phone calls and letters over months.

13

Interesting. I guess I dodged a bullet, and I stand corrected.

14

I have two books on this subject: One is called “How to Hide All of Your Assets and Disappear” and the other is “Privacy, How to Get it and How to Enjoy It”. They are written in a factual way and although they are entertaining, they are an interesting read if you are interested in a more thorough examination of this topic with real-world tips. They don’t say anything about any legal problems with disappearing itself. Staying hidden and keeping everything legal possible under an assumed name is harder.

I won’t go into too much detail but I disappeared on purpose using the advice in these books plus some common sense once. Let’s just say it did it for mass revenge and still don’t feel great about it. A missing person’s report was filed and there were police searches across the state. I had enough sense to go to a different state and operate solely on cash which I planned slightly in advance. A week later, I resurfaced and there was no hint of charges or other legal trouble. The missing person’s report was simply closed. It isn’t a nice thing to do though because friends and family truly start to believe you are dead after a week.

15

Make sure you don’t have a resale license with the state.
I had a state revenue guy threaten to issue a warrant for my arrest if I didn’t drop by his office when I stopped filing sales tax declarations with the state after a year and a half of filing them.
I dropped by his office the next day and filled out my forms, declaring zero sales and closing out my resale license.
I’d closed up the business, but I’d never taken the time to let the state know.

16

[QUOTE=RJKUgly]
Usually there are no dire consequences, but there can be.

If you had income, but your withholding was more than amount of your taxes, then you have a refund coming. If you don’t file for it, you don’t get it, obviously. You figure the small amount of the refund is not worth my time to file, and besides, I paid my taxes, they can’t touch me, right?

But there is also a penalty for not filing when you are supposed to, not just penalties for not paying.

So if you had taxable income above the minimum for your filing status and situation, you can be penalized for not filing even if you have a refund coming. In some cases, this penalty is waved, especially if you file within a year or two before they ding you on it. In some cases, the penalty can be more than the refund and you wind up owing money and not getting the refund at all.
[/QUOTE]

The Penalty for not filing is (up to) 25% of the amount owed. If they owe you or you owe 0, the penalty is then 0. I am talking FIT only, various States may have different laws.

hajario There is no such thing as a “$500 fine for Tax evasion” for the IRS.

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq2-1.html

http://taxes.about.com/od/backtaxes/qt/irs_tax_penalty.htm
"If you have a refund, there is no penalty for filing late. Penalties are calculated on the amount due. Since there is no amount due, there is no penalty."

There is really only one $500 penalty:
http://www.taxaid.net/tax_penalty.html
" *Penalty for frivolous return: You may have to pay a penalty of $500 if you file a return that does not include enough information to figure the correct tax or shows an incorrect tax amount due to:

* A frivolous position on your part or
* A desire to delay or interfere with the administration of federal income tax laws.

This penalty is in addition to any other penalty provided by law. "*

Now, there is a Penalty for a false W-4.

“*The IRS may assess a $500 civil penalty for a false W-4 if they decide excessive allowances have been claimed. A W-4 claiming excessive allowances is not subject to the civil penalty for filing a “frivolous tax return.” If the $500 false W-4 penalty is wrongly imposed, this can be challenged by seeking an “abatement” of the penalty through the “W-4 Coordinator” at the IRS Service Center.”
*
But it really is the same as the Penalty for frivolous return, just that the W-4 is the frivolus return. It is just possible that you filed an “exempt” W-4 but still owed taxes, and the IRS then proposed said penalty.

My Bro is a ex-IRS agent, now a Tax Pro.

The problem with running and hiding is how about your SSN? Getting a new SSN can be a crime. Using your old one allows you to be tracked.

17

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
The Penalty for not filing is (up to) 25% of the amount owed. If they owe you or you owe 0, the penalty is then 0. I am talking FIT only, various States may have different laws.

hajario There is no such thing as a “$500 fine for Tax evasion” for the IRS.

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq2-1.html

http://taxes.about.com/od/backtaxes/qt/irs_tax_penalty.htm
"If you have a refund, there is no penalty for filing late. Penalties are calculated on the amount due. Since there is no amount due, there is no penalty."
[/quote]
Ok, that’s interesting. Do you happen to know if this has changed in the last 20 years or so? I got tagged by the IRS with a fine (about $100 IIRC) for not filing in a year when I had a refund coming. It has been about 20 years, however.

Also, there was some confusion with a return filed by my ex-wife at the same time, and it took several months to get things straightened out, and by the time the dust settled there had been several recalculations of money owed, penalties, etc. At the time an IRS agent told me specifically that the fine was not filing even though I had a refund coming. Honestly I never actually looked up the IRS regs, it was a relatively small amount, I still got a check, and after all the hassle I was glad to be done with it.

18

Oh, I forgot to add, I was told the penalty was calculated on the tax amount, not the amount you owed after subtracting your withholding. So my FIT that year had been $3500 or so, and I had a couple of hundred more than that withheld. I was told specifically that I could be fined based on the $3500. Your cite seems to say just the opposite, so now I wonder if that agent was lying to me, wrong, or maybe just confused about what I owed after all the calculations that had gone on.

19

I feel better now: my mom was the one that told me that there was no penalty for not filing if you have a refund coming, and she’s a CPA, but she hasn’t practiced public accounting beyond the two years needed for the certification, so I figured she was mistaken (as she will be the first to tell you she isn’t a tax guru).

20

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
hajario There is no such thing as a “$500 fine for Tax evasion” for the IRS..
[/QUOTE]

This happened in 1984. Things have clearly changed since then. The fine wasn’t based on calculations based on what they think I should have owed. There was a whole list of things on the form and a check box next to one of them with the explanation and the amount of the fine. I had filed the previous five years or so and then the year after that. They were apparently concerned about the hole in the record. I am running out the door so I’ll tell the whole story later today or tomorrow.