IRS Raids Gun Store, Takes 4473s

Grayfox

Grayfox

US Veteran
Joined
Apr 21, 2001
Messages
8,026
Reaction score
20,185
Location
Bartlett, Tennessee
This is an interesting story that's popped up on another forum I visit. 

A couple of days ago, armed IRS agents raided and temporarily closed a gun shop in Montana. After spending most of the day going thru records, they left with about 13 years worth of forms 4473. By all accounts, the agents were polite and behaved themselves. But questions remain. Why would the IRS raid a gun store? Why would they want/need the 4473s? 

Bear in mind that at this point there is little more than lots of speculation going on. Many are outraged and jumping to conclusions. Still waiting on actual facts as to why to come out. 

STORY HERE

2nd Story Here
 
Register to hide this ad
IRS Criminal Investigations served a search warrant (according to the owner) which means a federal judge found probable cause to believe 1) a tax crime has been committed at the gunshop, and 2) evidence of the crime existed at those specific premises.

We'll know more when an indictment is handed down or the owner is 'no billed' by a federal grand jury. All else is speculation.
 
biku324 said:
IRS Criminal Investigations served a search warrant (according to the owner) which means a federal judge found probable cause to believe 1) a tax crime has been committed at the gunshop, and 2) evidence of the crime existed at those specific premises.

We'll know more when an indictment is handed down or the owner is 'no billed' by a federal grand jury. All else is speculation.
Click to expand...

Thanks for making this point...it needs to be said, and often.

There is a lot of bashing of the federal government these days, with accusations that this-or-that agency is biased or rogue or acting out of base motives. But the fact is that there are checks and balances built into our justice system to keep abuses from happening, or to at least minimize their chances.

Search warrants have to be applied for, with evidence supplied, reviewed by agency supervisors, and then approved by a judge. Indictments are handed down by grand juries, composed of ordinary citizens...prosecutors or government officials don't simply "charge" someone.

Even in civil enforcement actions, when federal inspectors believe there has been a violation of the Code of Federal Regulations, and violators are facing fines rather than criminal convictions, there are protections built into the system, with several layers of approval required before a case is finalized.

I truly wish more Americans understood how well our system of justice works. It's not perfect, of course, but it's a model of respect for the rights of citizens.
 
These are just questions not challenges to what happened.

- How are 4473's related to money?

- Were sales receipts also taken? (cross check with 4473's)?

- How would the 4473's be used for tax fraud?

- I do not understand how the IRS has authority to move into firearm regulation when there is already a branch dedicated to that.
 
my assumption....
pistol brace is "now" an "NFA Item"... those require a tax stamp... combination gets you an alphabet soup visit... makes sense to me.
 
Last edited:
That is interesting, indeed!

Tom Van Hoose has owned Highwood Creed Outfitters in Great Falls, Montana for 13 years. As he pulled into work Wednesday morning, twenty heavily armed Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division agents swarmed his store. He tells TTAG that the IRS agents, in full battle rattle, had been mustered from as far away as Denver and Idaho to serve a warrant for his financial records.

He told us the IRS claims that he has under-reported and failed to report millions of dollars of income. Mr. Van Hoose denied that categorically and told us that anyone who knows anything about the gun business knows there’s not a lot of extra revenue in running a retail gun store and range.

He also said that the IRS CID troops took ten hours to copy the information on his computers and download his point of sale software information.

So...in the '80s, we had a killing of a tourist by a local with what ballistic examiners said was a 220 Swift. We and the DA's investigator took an ATF agent to check local ammo sales outlets to see if anyone had sold 220 Swift ammo, and to whom. We found nothing useful in that investigation BUT the ATF agent found in a tiny gun store that the owner had been selling 9 AR-15s and/or semi-auto versions of MAC-10s per transaction to US citizen immigrants from the West Bank for several times the real retail price. Israeli Armed Forces eventually came across one of the AR-15s in a killing on the West Bank. Precisely how the weaponry made it to the West Bank from Gallup, NM, was never fully established; it involved more legitimate cargo shipping routes from Mexico.

Let's see what develops here.
 
Last edited:
So what happens if the ATF calls for a firearms trace if he is no longer in possession of the 4473s?. In the shop where I worked I did the traces and while I could answer some questions without them, all the information they wanted would not be on just the sales records.
 
Beemerguy53 said:
Thanks for making this point...it needs to be said, and often.

There is a lot of bashing of the federal government these days, with accusations that this-or-that agency is biased or rogue or acting out of base motives. But the fact is that there are checks and balances built into our justice system to keep abuses from happening, or to at least minimize their chances.

Search warrants have to be applied for, with evidence supplied, reviewed by agency supervisors, and then approved by a judge. Indictments are handed down by grand juries, composed of ordinary citizens...prosecutors or government officials don't simply "charge" someone.

Even in civil enforcement actions, when federal inspectors believe there has been a violation of the Code of Federal Regulations, and violators are facing fines rather than criminal convictions, there are protections built into the system, with several layers of approval required before a case is finalized.

I truly wish more Americans understood how well our system of justice works. It's not perfect, of course, but it's a model of respect for the rights of citizens.
Click to expand...

Does this apply to the FBI and the FISA courts?
 
My immediate reaction re the IRS confiscating the 4473s is that it wanted to confirm if the amount of guns/revenue reported as sold, as income, jived with the 4473 reports. That seems to be the case as the article describes.

There is a lot of under reporting of income going on. The article says the under reporting in this case is suspected to be in the millions, which sounds to me like the guy was pushing his luck.

Re what happens if the ATF audits him and his 4473s are gone, while in my opinion that is the least of his problems, I'm sure the IRS will return the forms after tallying them up to ballpark the FFL's sales record. (The guy is unlikely to need them, though, as it looks like he's out of business.)
 
Last edited:
There’s also a third story! That being that the owner of Highwood Creek Outfitters running afoul with the ATF in Wisconsin in 2015, which cost him nearly ~$5.7-Mln. USD to resolve for doing the same thing, not keeping proper records…


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
New info: Story Here

Lots of people were getting all bent outta shape because a gun shop was involved. Tons of speculation about government over reach, Biden, dems and whatever.

Turns out its all about tax fraud. "The agents had a search warrant and claimed that Mr. Van Hoose underreported millions of dollars of income from his business, a claim Mr. Hoose vehemently denies."

Current guess is that the 4473s are to prove more sales than actually reported. 

So untwist those panties folks. Ain't no over reach or conspiracies here. :rolleyes:
 
Sometime around 2017, a gun shop near Winchester, Virginia was raided for being caught selling firearm reportedly destroyed in a in shop fire and collecting the insurance money of their worth before the fire. Fraud is fraud, and really does the general public (i.e. the customer) a disservice in not knowing as to whether the seller is serving your needed interests or their own…


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Secundius said:
There’s also a third story! That being that the owner of Highwood Creek Outfitters running afoul with the ATF in Wisconsin in 2015, which cost him nearly ~$5.7-Mln. USD to resolve for doing the same thing, not keeping proper records…
Click to expand...

The owner of a gun shop not far away from me got snippy with ATF some years ago, and learned a valuable lesson. They had audited him, and found a number of problems with his 4473s...unsigned forms, etc. His attitude was basically "what's the big deal?", which got his FFL suspended.

If you flout the law or the Code of Federal Regulations, expect to pay a price for that...
 
Beemerguy53 said:
The owner of a gun shop not far away from me got snippy with ATF some years ago, and learned a valuable lesson. They had audited him, and found a number of problems with his 4473s...unsigned forms, etc. His attitude was basically "what's the big deal?", which got his FFL suspended.

If you flout the law or the Code of Federal Regulations, expect to pay a price for that...
Click to expand...


It’s called Firearms Compliance Inspections, which the AFT are allowed to conduct at anytime of the day and without notification to the store or the owner of the store! Basically the same as the USCG are allowed to do with all US Registered Boat Owners, the Fire Department with all businesses, the Health Inspectors with all restaurants, etc…


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

max
Gun Store Etiquette
2 3
Replies
41
Views
2K
Smeckler
S
oldbrownhat
World’s largest 3D-printed community takes shape in Texas
Replies
5
Views
422
A10
A10
LoboGunLeather
New IRS rules on RMD
Replies
14
Views
1K
Magnum_PI
Magnum_PI
WardenRoss
Vanderbilt takes down No. 1 Alabama
2
Replies
28
Views
839
WardenRoss
WardenRoss
oldbrownhat
Rare Beatles recording turns up in Vancouver BC record store
Replies
3
Views
423
oldbrownhat
oldbrownhat

Latest posts

Back
Top