Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 February 11

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 11

What is the tax rate on ill-gotten gains?

This isn't my question, I'm reposting someone else's, but I'm curious...

"Hypothetical, say you are a criminal, but want to avoid the fate of Al Capone and get busted for not paying your taxes. Can you use the capital gains rate if you have some sort of fraud that takes more than a year for the payoff?

The best would be some sort of crime that pays off after the statute of limitations, and you only have to pay the lower capital gains rate. Win Win Win!"

what do you guys make of it --80.99.254.208 (talk) 08:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. The period for the tax authorities to claim begins when they become aware of a potential claim. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Kitty, I think two things are being conflated here. The part about statute of limitations applies to the original crime (hence "ill-gotten"), not to the tax fraud. The context I copied this from was about large-scale bank fraud, sorry I didn't make this clear. So the part I copied in quotation marks is this: "What if you commit a crime that results in you getting a payoff 15 years later, after the statute of limitations expires." I don't know what kind of crime would pay off after such a long time. The point is, can you just drop off a sack of money at the IRS, saying, "Here's 30 percent of a bunch of cash I just got from crimes 15 years ago. It hasn't paid off until now." So, say it really is capital gains (you put money into committing the crime): then is that 30% really the capital gains percentage? Would this happen as the poster imagines? Do you have to tell the IRS how you got your money? I think the poster I quoted is raising an interesting idea... --80.99.254.208 (talk) 09:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

You can, but you are very likely to be audited. And remember, what you tell the IRS can be conveyed to law enforcement.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:06, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you absolutely sure about that? I thought there was a pretty significant wall of confidentiality between the IRS and other agencies. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, as a general rule, but if there are so many exceptions that if they really want to, they'll find one.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

There are often legal means to avoid applying the statute of limitation. Ib30 (talk) 14:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

For example, the clock often starts not from when the crime is committed, but from when a report is filed on it. The goal, after all, isn't to make life easier on criminals, but on law enforcement, by removing the burden of cold cases when the prospects of solving them seem dim. StuRat (talk) 20:25, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It might also be argued that the goal is to make life easier for innocent suspects. For one thing, the more time has gone by, the harder it is to establish your alibi. —Tamfang (talk) 20:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Inventing, but not for the army

If a company invents something which has a double civilian and military use, does it have some means of restricting the legal use to civilians? Ib30 (talk) 14:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It's real recourse is limiting distribution to companies they know will not resell to the military, putting that in their sales contracts, and refusing further orders to resellers who violate those terms. I don't think the courts will go very far in enforcing it, not for political reasons, but because it is hard to show damages from unwanted sales, so it is mostly on the company.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

But, any government, even from 'reliable' countries, would be able to produce it someday (maybe when the patent runs out),wouldn't it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ib30 (talk • contribs) 14:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The state has to put limits on the usage. The company cannot restrict "legal use" by fiat, other than maybe tying it up in contracts in some way. But that's a pretty weak method. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

That's clear to me that the company cannot just put a tag on something and say "do not use if you are the army". But, which are the legal ways of restricting the use? How do chemicals, for example, get included in the Chemical Weapons Convention? Is it really necessary that their potential for harming people be demonstrated in the practice? Or, could a chemical company, that just invented a new chemical, try to get this chemical included on the grounds that its chemical is equally dangerous to other banned chemicals? This hypothetical scenario is, of course, excluding non-legal use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ib30 (talk • contribs) 16:19, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I doubt that a private company could become aware that a chemical was particularly useful in military action without having a contract with the military; think of the testing. There has been controversy that states were importing sedatives used in lethal injection execution, which are no longer made in the US, and the European companies that make them have taken steps to tighten distribution to try to make sure that their products are not used for a legal governmental purpose with which they disagree.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

If it was the US government and they wanted it bad enough, they'd reverse engineer it privately; you might never know. Salve your conscience by tripling the price.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you "salve your conscience" with money? Ib30 (talk) 16:39, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

If not, then don't market your invention.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:47, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is an international body that gets together every now and then and can add chemicals to their lists of prohibited munitions if they want to. Private companies don't do this. As for trying to increase the cost on things, be aware that governments usually have some powers for compulsory licensing, meaning they can exploit your patents without giving you more than "fair" compensation. The US government even has the ability to declare your invention secret and then license it for itself, all without your input or approval whatsoever. Note that in certain domains (e.g. nuclear technology of any sort) the US government has very strong statutes in place to allow them to compulsory license the technology and even prevent you from using it yourself! --Mr.98 (talk) 18:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

A patent would be the most obvious way, but as you said, that's for a limited time. I suppose you could restrict the distribution chain of a product somewhat, if you were the only one to manufacture it, through various contracts. But at any time Congress (assuming the U.S. here) could pass a law and get around those contracts or other restrictions. There's also patent provisions to keep patents secret in the interest of national security, and there may be similar features there that'd allow the government to use them. I'm no expert on patent law, but I think that the federal government/military generally respects patent law, and can be sued for it (see sovereign immunity for the big picture), but there may be exceptions to that. Finally, absent some sort of intellectual property protection, or similar restriction, a design or method is almost impossible to keep restricted once the cat's out of the bag. Shadowjams (talk) 23:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

A company with an American presence would be running a great risk refusing to sell the government something it needs. In addition to being labeled anti-American, they would also run afoul of the fact that the federal government has the authority to regulate interstate commerce. In short, if the company refused to sell their products to the government, the government might ban their product outright. Not a good business strategy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:06, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Number 27 and Isis

I read that the number 27 - the sacred number of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Where can I find confirmation or source? Странник27 (talk) 14:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll start, hopefully someone else will provide more info. Numbers in Egyptian mythology says "2, 3, 4, 7, and their multiples and sums" were sacred numbers in Egypt. (So presumably 27, as 3x3x3, could be a candidate.) The cite is to a book called "Meaning in Many: The Symbolism of Numbers," Symbol & Magic in Egyptian Art, by Richard H. Wilkinson, Thames and Hudson, 1994, page 127. That might be a place to start.

Searches on Google Books and Google Scholar for "sacred number" +Isis generally turn up references more than a century old. This doesn't mean that there was not really a concept of sacred numbers in ancient Egypt, but may mean that the idea doesn't have much weight with current scholarship - which would mean there may not actually be a lot of evidence for it.--184.147.128.151 (talk) 15:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that this subject was more fully developed in Greek culture, so if 27 (i.e. 3³) was sacred to Isis, it probably would have been the Hellenistic-then-Roman cross-cultural "oriental mystery cult" Isis, not the old Pharaonic-period Isis... AnonMoos (talk) 18:43, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Isis' attributes became a lot more diverse and complicated in the Greco-Roman world. For instance, Plutarch's book De Iside et Osiride, which is about Isis and Osiris, contains some numerological interpretations of aspects of those gods and their myths, but most of those interpretations seem to be from other Greek and Roman writers and have little to do with Egyptian tradition. On a quick scan of the book, though, I can't find anything about 27. There is something of a focus on 28, the number of days in the lunar cycle, because Osiris and Isis both had lunar aspects, at least in Plutarch's time. A. Parrot (talk) 01:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

February 21 Language Day

What is the point if whole world except Bangladesh doesn't celebrate February 21st? Different ethnic groups doesn't celebrate their language on that day. If I am wrong about that point, then proof me that one ethnic group or more that does the celebration of February 21 like Punjabis, Gujaratis, Tamils, Assamese, Sindhis, Pashtuns, Baloches, Marathis, Oriyas, Telugus, Kannadas, Malayalis, Persians, Azeris, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Swedes, Norwegians, and others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.229.8 (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Because "the date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh", which has nothing to do with the rest of the world, and when the UN creates a 'World [insert random words here] Day', people around the world rarely celebrate it en masse. A few people here and there may observe it, but it never becomes a national holiday for all nations globally. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:06, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Uhm, never heard of February 21 Language Day. But I do know that the UN has packed the calendar full of celebratory days that rarely recieves any kind of celebration outside the narrow field of specialists that are connected to the particular celebration on each individual day and of course some folks at the UN who decided what to celebrate. This being said with the disclaimer that I actually do think that the UN does more good than harm. --Saddhiyama (talk) 23:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Official name is International Mother Language Day... -- AnonMoos (talk) 02:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Migrating to New France

That's a lot of territory...

Why weren't the French as eager as the British to migrate to the New World? Were peasants and generally poorer Frenchman allowed to leave the country to move to other colonies? And if so, why didn't more of them move there? Help would be great! :) 64.229.180.189 (talk) 23:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure "the French" were not as eager? French colonial empire mentions that French colonists emphasized the fur trade over agricultural settlements, though I'm sure that's only one factor of many. The British captured most of the French colonies at the beginning of the 1800s. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:00, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the French were not as eager. At the time of the French and Indian War, the French population of New France was about 70,000 while British North America had a population of over 1 million (and concentrated in a smaller area). 75.41.110.200 (talk) 00:19, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I have less knowledge of the American situation than my own part of the world, Australia. Here, the key French and British explorations of the late 1700s seemed to happen around the same time, and they bumped into one another quite a bit, but while the British seemed keen on both settlement and science, the French seemed to often only be interested in the science, so they didn't stay. HiLo48 (talk) 00:34, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Comet Tuttle -- French Canada was captured in 1759... AnonMoos (talk) 01:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd put it at 1763, with the Treaty of Paris. And, of course, a good portion of New France remained French until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. StuRat (talk) 05:34, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't wrapped up for a few more years, but 1759 was the most decisive battle. And the remaining (Missisippi valley) territories had some good trade prospects, but little realistic possibility of establishing dense European-populated agricultural settlements, given the conditions of the second half of the 8th century... AnonMoos (talk) 06:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

64.229.180.189 -- French control over much of the green area in that image was in fact rather nominal at best. Also, the French government insisted that only loyal Catholic citizens approved by the government should settle in New France, and live there under quasi-neo-feudalism, while Britain was only too happy to allow political and religious malcontents and dissidents to ship out to the British colonies... AnonMoos (talk) 01:42, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Settling in New France was not considered as attractive as settling in New England. The French government had to exercise ingenuity to get any women to go to Quebec, hence the filles du roi. BrainyBabe (talk) 04:21, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The French were primarily interested in the fur trade in North America, and across most of the continent, their presence was limited to a few trading posts and garrisons at most. They had little interest in settling the interior and the Mississippi Valley for fear of antagonizing the native peoples on whom the fur and deerskin trade depended. They only area that they attempted to settle was Quebec. As AnonMoos correctly says, this was a top-down colonization by the royal government, in which settlers would have to accept a semi-feudal relationship with a landlord. (See Seigneurial system of New France.) Furthermore, life in Quebec was hard. Winters were brutal, much colder than anything in France, the growing season was short, comforts were few. In short, there was little to attract many Frenchmen to the place. (And less to attract Frenchwomen as BrainyBabe has pointed out.) By contrast, opportunities for English colonists in North America were often much more promising than those in the home country. They could hope to own lots of land outright and were free to do largely as they saw fit. Marco polo (talk) 04:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

They did attempt to settle areas outside Quebec, such as New Orleans. StuRat (talk) 05:42, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Much of New France was also in a state of war between the various natives who already lived there (exacerbated, of course, by the French presence, and the English too). Since the French population was so small it was dangerous to venture outside the little colony. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:25, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It was also the case that the British had severe population pressures that led to their encouraging colonization. With a little indentured servitude, just about anybody could "start over" in the New World. Add to that the untold riches of tobacco cultivation (the "killer app" of 16th century North America) and you have a strong motivation to emigrate. Add also the way in which religious factors played into British emigration, owing in part to the very different religious situation in the UK at the time. The French didn't have similar pressures. Their colonial holdings in the New World were more tied up in the sugar trade than in anything in North America, and that's a very different sort of economic endeavor and had different sorts of pressures (e.g. rampant malaria) affecting it. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

StuRat is correct that there was a small French settlement of a few thousand people in Louisiana centered on New Orleans. However, it was the same tightly controlled, top-down colonization effort that had such limited success in Quebec. Marco polo (talk) 02:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

A few thousand is small today, but was that considered small for a North American colonial city, at that time ? StuRat (talk) 02:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Our article on Louisiana_(New_France) suggests that the rate of settlement in the Louisiana area of New France was 100X less than the British in New England. Not especially surprising given the issues with malaria and yellow fever that would have been rampant there at that time. It would be fascinating to know what the death rate of Europeans from disease was, but it likely was pretty high, much higher than New England or Canada. (Unsurprisingly, the French seem to have imported about as many slaves as they had colonists, which would again support the malaria-was-killing-them theory, as that was the standard labor model in malarial areas.) --Mr.98 (talk) 03:40, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Another aspect was that France is much larger than England, and the population was about the same. So the French had some opportunities to grow a larger population within France, which the English didn't. --Lgriot (talk) 08:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)