Stephen McDow and the Stupidity of the IRS

Stephen McDow

A man by the name of Stephen McDow was arrested after the IRS mistakenly deposited $110,000 into his back account, reports The Huffington Post. The money was a tax return meant for an elderly lady. Stephen was taken to jail with a bail of $110,000 and faces up to four years in prison after spending $60,000 of it on student loans and his home mortgage.

When The Huffington Post linked their article on Facebook, they had included a status that said "Fair?"

Now I really love The Huffington Post, but this was really a stupid question. Of course it is fair.

In this case, he knew the money wasn't his. If you go to the bank, and you have $110,000 that you didn't earn, don't spend it. I can only imagine the temptation one would feel in the case of this man, but with a sum of money that large, someone is looking for it, and they are going to find it. To be honest, this man lucked out that it was a Government mistake and not some criminal mistake, because he would probably have to worry for his life if that was the case. It was just an all around bad decision to spend a dime of that money, there was no way it was going to end well.

I do not think he should spend four years in prison though, because it is important to remember that the IRS did make a mistake here, it doesn't all fall to him. He should have to pay the money back through some sort of payment system, but there is no way this man should lose four years of his life because of the combined stupidity of himself and the IRS. That would not be fair.

We have too many people caught up in our penal system for ridiculous things anyway, let's not add Stephen to the list.

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