FOX News Randy Sowers built his dairy farm over three decades into
a thriving business. After kick-starting with a $100,000 loan, today
the South Mountain Creamery has 1,000 cows and 70 employees delivering
milk, ice cream and other products to homes in the Washington, D.C.,
area.
But the Maryland farmer’s operation suffered a big setback when the
IRS swooped in to seize tens of thousands of hard-earned dollars from
his account, claiming he violated an obscure banking law.
And despite the federal agency all but admitting the law they used to
seize the cash is flawed — and at least one member of Congress calling
the move unconstitutional — Sowers is still fighting to get his money
back.
“We work hard for what we get, and the government can just come in
and take that. It’s not what it’s supposed to be,” Sowers told Fox News.
Sowers was targeted by the IRS under a controversial policy
concerning the size of bank transactions. Banks are supposed to fill out
extensive paperwork for every cash transaction over $10,000 – but to
intentionally keep transactions under that threshold can be a violation
called “structuring.”
Sowers, 61, found himself accused of this after becoming, it seems, a
victim of his own success. As his company got bigger over the years and
his employees went to more and more weekend farmers markets, they ended
up with a lot of cash come Monday morning.
This is where the taxman trouble started, as he says the bank sought
limited deposit amounts. “We’d had our festival and we get a lot [of]
extra money,” Sowers explained. He said the bank teller told them they’d
take their $12,000 in deposits, but they’d be “better off” if they kept
it under $10,000, since “there is a lot of paperwork we have to fill
out if you have to deposit more than $10,000.”
Under the “structuring” laws, doing what the teller suggested is technically a crime.
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