Unreported Income

[lamarw]

This is just a guess on my part since it is so prevalent in our current society. I could also use the example of cutting and deliverying firewood. Is this possliby the reason some gun sellers do not want to go through a background check procedure? There will be a tracable income record?

Is there so much untaxed reveune on some seller's parts that will have them garner sells to any private party without a Federal Firearms License? If so, these sellers should have a FFL

I am sorry guys, but I worked to dang many years of my life and paid income taxes to feel sorry for some broker looking for a loop hole to hide their income.

If so, I think this goes way beyound gun control and more to tax evasion.

Why in the heck jeopardise my firearm rights with your illegal tax evasion scheme?

[BarryLee]

Why in the heck jeopardise my firearm rights with your illegal tax evasion scheme?

I suppose that could be a little bit of it. However, the big thing is the major inconvenience and expense for law abiding citizens and the fact the criminals will just ignore the system. The only way to even come close to making it work is to have a national registry of all firearms and I know we don’t want that.

[NWPilgrim]

Not reporting income has nothing to do with wanting to keep firearms transaction between individuals private, that is not reporting to the govt.

For one thing, background checks do not prevent crime and some reports state there have nearly zero prosecutions for failed background checks. So the entire premise of background checks somehow making anyone safer is a fallacy. Criminals usually steal guns or trade for guns amongst themselves so they would never be affected by background checks. This was true even before background checks were mandated for FFLs. Do you really think a criminal wants to pay full retail for a gun he is likely to throw away after his next use?

Secondly, background checks cost money. They are run through your state's law enforcement branch and cost at least $10 each time. Not a huge amount but it is $10 flushed down the toilet for no good purpose.

Background checks are a burden to the law-abiding, have no effect on safety, and create a tempting data source for govt to abuse its role and retain that data in lieu of an outright registry.

[MLeake]

Unreported income for dealers? Seriously, lamarw....

An FFL dealer does not have the legal option NOT to conduct the check. He is required to use the 4473 and NICS.

A private seller, so far as I know, does not need to report the sale of personal property that is not used as part of a business. For the most part, I suspect private sellers often as not sell at a loss, in any case.

Edit: Speaking of "jeopardizing my rights," I have noticed a general pattern that this go-around, shooters who like EBRs and higher capacity magazines are looking at background checks as a sacrifice fly to protect their own interests.

We need to stand together as gun owners and refuse a renewed AWB, capacity ban, and background checks.

[Evan Thomas]

Originally Posted by MLeake

Edit: Speaking of "jeopardizing my rights," I have noticed a general pattern that this go-around, shooters who like EBRs and higher capacity magazines are looking at background checks as a sacrifice fly to protect their own interests.

We need to stand together as gun owners and refuse a renewed AWB, capacity ban, and background checks.

A very good point. In the long run, a strategy of "divide and conquer" always wins, but only if people allow themselves to be divided from one another.

"We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." (Benjamin Franklin did say this, and he was right.)

[hogdogs]

Not at all an issue for me as buyer or seller... I am of the ilk that prefers to have less hoops to jump thru and money to spend as well as not minding owning a few arms that are just like my TV set... NOT REGISTERED...

Brent

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by MLeake

...A private seller, so far as I know, does not need to report the sale of personal property that is not used as part of a business. For the most part, I suspect private sellers often as not sell at a loss, in any case...

Selling at a loss is one thing. But it you sell something at a profit, that profit can still be taxable income.

It's probably true that casual sales of personal property at a profit don't get reported, and in general the amounts involved are probably trivial enough not to attract any attention.

[hogdogs]

Isn't there a minimum price of sale that must be met before reporting is even required???

And isn't this, between private parties, on a "per transaction" type schedule???

Brent

[MLeake]

Frank Ettin, I suspect you are right, but I can't remember the last thing I sold at a profit.

[Tom Servo]

It runs deeper than the matter of income. If I want to give a gun as a gift, I'd have to do the check. If I inherit, pass down, or loan a gun, I'd also have to do the check.

The opposition is to a measure that's overbearing and ineffective.

[lcpiper]

I still stand by my earliest comments.

1st This is not what the Federal Government is empowered to do.
2nd They don't work anyway.
3rd They can't work without becoming a registration process.
and ....

4th The effort trying to shove this down our throats, and us trying to fight it, is just getting in the way of figuring out what the cause of the actual problem is.

[Webleymkv]

My reasons for opposing Universal Background Checks have nothing to do with money. The majority of the time that I sell a firearm, I do so on consignment through an FFL and thus pay a commission equal to or greater than the income or capital gains tax that I'd be charged on the profit anyway. I do this because I feel that it's my personal responsibility to do everything I reasonably can to ensure that I don't sell a firearm to a prohibited person and consigning through an FFL is usually the easiest way to do this.

That being said, attempting to legislate personal responsibility almost never works well. Said legislation is usually either toothless and unenforceable (a straw purchase, for example, can be an incredibly difficult thing to prove) or the measures needed to make it enforceable are so repressive as to become unintended consequences in and of themselves.

In the case of Universal Background Checks, there is simply no way to make such a system work without registration of guns, gun owners, or both. While Universal Background Checks on its face might not seem so unreasonable, registration is a Pandora's box in and of itself. Probably the most obvious example of why registration is a bad idea is the recent debacle with The Journal News in New York. A database of lawful gun owners simply makes it all the easier for unscrupulous journalists to identify and attempt to intimidate them.

The second, and most compelling, reason that registration is a bad idea is that it facilitates gun confiscation by over zealous officials in a time of disaster such as what we saw in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While that measure was later ruled illegal and several states and the federal gov't later took legislative action to ensure it would not be repeated, it still took many people years to recover their property if ever recovered at all. In spite of the subsequent court rulings and laws, if some bureaucrat decides to ignore the law and try this again, a person's only recourse will be through the courts and that cannot help them when cops and/or soldiers are demanding their firearms right then and there.

Finally, I resent the notion that I should somehow be held responsible for the illegal actions of someone else. If we actually punished crime and treated mental illness appropriately, background checks in general would be unnecessary. I for one am not asking how we can keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill because the answer to that question seems pretty obvious to me. The real question we should be asking is why, if someone is too dangerous to be trusted with a firearm due to a crime they committed or a mental illness, are we letting such a person back into society at all? While I certainly wouldn't trust a convicted murderer or rapist with a firearm, I wouldn't trust such a person with an automobile, knife, can of gasoline, or aggressive dog either. Such people have proven themselves either unable or unwilling to function in a civilized society and the only way to effectively eliminate the danger they represent is to remove them from society through incarceration or, if the crime is severe enough, capital punishment.

[Levant]

If so, I think this goes way beyound gun control and more to tax evasion.

Why in the heck jeopardise my firearm rights with your illegal tax evasion scheme?

Interesting viewpoint. Use tax laws to control guns. You have a real future ahead of you in the gun control lobby.

A private sale background check, presumably, wouldn't tell anything about who the seller is, only the buyer. And, if it is like current FFL checks, wouldn't tell what kind of gun the buyer bought and it doesn't tell what he paid for it.

[Uncle Buck]

I am not understanding how a background check relates to income. I do not believe they have to record the amount it sold for anywhere on the form nor do they have to report it to the NICS folks.

[Hal]

4th The effort trying to shove this down our throats, and us trying to fight it, is just getting in the way of figuring out what the cause of the actual problem is

Amen....

I have grandchildren in elementry school.
I want them safe just as bad as the most diehard anti gun person want's their kids safe.

All this crap over blaming the guns instead of looking for the why doen't do anything to address the root cause.

[1911Tuner]

in general the amounts involved are probably trivial enough not to attract any attention.

This. The IRS isn't going to pursue you if you happen to get lucky and make 50 bucks on a gun that you bought 5 years ago, if it's even discovered.

As Hyman Roth noted: "He's small potatoes."

[Kreyzhorse]

If so, I think this goes way beyound gun control and more to tax evasion.

I understand your thought process, but the current climate has nothing to do with tax evasion. The current climate is simply people who do not want you to own guns using Sandy Hook as a spring board to attempt to take then.