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Civil Forfeitures: IRS Seizing Bank Accounts from Innocent Americans without Charges or Trials

We’ve talked about the security of the banking industry many times in the past, but the story we found today should come as a huge wake-up call to those who think their money’s safe in today’s banking system.

The American Enterprise Institute ran a story earlier this week of a Family who had their entire bank account wiped out, after the IRS used civil forfeiture laws to seize all of the money in the family’s bank account.

For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has run a small successful family owned grocery store in Fraser, Michigan. In January of this year, the IRS used civil forfeiture, a process that was originally used to go after organized crime, to seize all of the money from the family’s store bank account. The IRS took over $35,000 of the family’s money, all of this without ever filing a criminal charge or allowing them to have a day in court.

What did the family do wrong?

Not a thing! In fact, the government seized the family’s money without ever charging, or convicting them of a crime.

Civil Forfeiture laws allow the government to take your money at any time, simply because they don’t like the way you’re depositing money. Last year we covered a similar story in which a small family farm had over $70,000 of their hard earned money stolen by the government through Civil Forfeiture laws.

Just like the Dehko family, the Sower Family in Middletown, Maryland, ran a small family business and had their money seized by the government.

When the Sower family went to make a large deposit, from earnings they made selling farm goods at a local farmers market, they learned they would be required to fill out paperwork at the bank. This paperwork would then be submitted to the federal government for review.

The Sowers, decided it wasn’t worth the time and hassle, and opted to roll some of their deposit over until the next month. After all it was their hard-earned money, why should the government be able to tell them how much they can or can’t deposit into their own account? This is still America, Right?

Well, apparently deciding how you handle your own money is reason enough for the government to step in and seize your bank account; which is exactly that happened to the Sower’s bank account. Just like the Dehko family, the Sower’s deposit, which was just under $10,000, tripped some sort of government surveillance trigger.

Without a trail, and without even being accused of a crime, both families found themselves penniless.

Civil Forfeitures being Abused throughout the Country.

Last year, a New Jersey man, George Reby, was stopped on a highway for speeding. Reby, who was on his way to pay for a car that he just bought on eBay, had a large amount of cash with him, $22,000 to be exact.

Having done nothing wrong, besides speeding, he expected to receive a ticket and then be on his way. Instead, he was shocked when the Tennessee police department confiscated his money.

According to the law in Tennessee, carrying a large amount of cash instantly makes you a suspected drug dealer or terrorist, and gives the police department the right to confiscate your money. No Due Process and No Recourse.

Incredible as it sounds, you don’t have to be found guilty of a crime to have your assets claimed by the government; in some states, suspicion is enough to have your money seized. In fact, in many areas of the country civil asset forfeiture laws allow the government to seize property without charging anyone with a crime.

Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on our liberty to date.  Under civil forfeiture, federal, state and local governments can seize your car, your money or other property without ever charging you with a crime.

In this country we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty; but like so many of our founding principles, we seem to be losing even the presumption of innocence.

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Comments

15 COMMENTS

  1. Ya know, i really hope the government closes tuesday and they all become the target or Preppers everywhere! THEN we take ALL the stuff they stole from hard working people!

  2. It only takes one grain of sand in the Vaseline to irritate, a million more will grind them down. Those that enforce tyranny, deserve a Gestapo ends….prepare for when the levee breaks, my friends…

  3. And now we know why IRS agents are being armed with AR15’s while average citizens have been told they should not have the right to.Let’s face it ,none of the money “borrowed”from our social security funds will ever be returned either.

  4. I use to be in banking. When a customer brought in $10,000 we had to fill out a Currency Transaction Report (CTR). Come to find out if you deposited $5,000 cash a flag went up in the back office and different was filled out. If this new form was filled out two days in a row, bam, a CTR was now filled out. After several years we found out the new amount was $2,500. What prompted this was people were cashing their checks from their employers bank. Then they would add cash or subtract cash and deposit the cash at their bank. My thought was why does the bank want to know what they are depositing, better yet the government?

  5. My husband is self-employed so we go thru this evey quarter to pay taxes. Have to fill out the form to deposit the tax money, then send check to the IRS. Even tho check is written to IRS, it’s a complete hassle for 5-10 days, with holds on my account, and God help us if you need cash for anything, and all the other bills better get paid way earlier than usual so there’s extra time for the checks to clear.
    Donna
    If everyone had to PAY their taxes every quarter, there would be pitchforks in D.C. !!

    • Just don’t pay the quarterly taxes… Seriously, we wait until October the following year, figure out exactly what we owe, and send in one check. Obviously you get hit with penalties and interest, but every time that amount has been well worth not giving up my money for an entire year and dealing with the quarterly filing. My accountant frowns on it, but so far there has been no consequences.

  6. The Zionist cabal in Washington D.C. does not care about you and me. Their IRS will take money from anyone they want. No one has any way to stop it. Oppression from this now Fascist police state is intensifying across the nation. This government’s enforcement arm, the DHS, is now very heavily armed, so they will be able to easily destroy any resistance. The only avenue we have left is non-compliance. I like the idea of the trucker stoppage that is supposed to happen in a few more days. The people need to refuse to work. The people need to stop everything.

  7. I have a good friend who had an S-Corp set up for his business, but over the years people occasionally made checks out to him directly. He signed the checks over to the S-Corp and deposited them in the S-Corp’s account. Paid taxes on all the income, etc. The IRS calls him up a couple of years ago and says he owes taxes on those checks made out to him directly. His accountant gets in on the game and they start working it out – they were actively engaged with the IRS showing that taxes were in fact paid. He had all the cancelled checks and great documentation. They thought it was done and didn’t hear anything additionally from the IRS, until… Two years later, the IRS froze all his accounts. No warning, no recourse, nothing he could do. His kids had to loan mom and dad money to pay bills, the mortgage, etc. for weeks until it finally got worked out in his favor.

    • And just think in the beginning the money that was sent to the govt. was to help suppoprt the war effort, and then some guy had a bright idea we will just keep taking it now that the people have gotten used to giving it to us.

  8. Irs must be done away with or things will only get worse. Very soon, obamacare will intensify the tyranny and greed of the irs.It is the globalist nature of the emerging new world order that will soon destroy americas wealth and its peoples ability to make a living. Government rules and regulation have already ruined the fishing, logging, oil, and trucking industries. Irs is simply one of many tool our criminal globalist government uses to destroy the economy in preparation for the take over of society by the new. World order. The irony of all this is most americans are to stupid to see it coming. They say “just pay your taxes and everything will be fine. This year americas economy will take a back seat to chinas economy. Their is only one hope. Get rid of irs, the federal reserve bank and obamacare(and obama) and the economy will turn around overnight. If you dont brlieve this be prepared to give all you are eorth to the government and become slaves of the new world order.

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