The IRS Expects Criminals To Report This One Thing On Their Income Taxes

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore, but a friend of mine recently posted a document from the IRS that had me second-guessing that what I was looking at was real. Well after some online sleuthing, it was confirmed that what I was looking at was indeed a real document from the IRS. The document lists "other sources" of income that may need to be reported on your 2021 taxes, one of those items listed was stolen items, meaning that criminals are expected to input into their taxes the fair market value of the items stolen in 2021 unless they returned them.

Page 77 of the 2021 Tax Guide for individuals features the quirky entry from the Internal Revenue Service regarding stolen property needing to be reported on your taxes.

The entry regarding stolen property is short, and if you weren't paying attention you might miss it. Here is was the IRS has to say about this "other" source of income.

Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.

While the request from the IRS seems odd, it does make sense if you really think about it. By not reporting that income on your taxes, the Federal government could then come after you for tax evasion if you were to be audited or like how they nabbed Al Capone, they weren't able to get him on bootlegging charges so the IRS instead went after him for not reporting all of his income on his taxes.