White Collar Crimes

 Posted on August 14, 2013 in White collar crime

The white collar community is made up of members of the middle and upper classes that have business-related, salaried jobs.

White collar crimes most often have dishonesty or cheating as their base, as entrepreneurs or other businessmen or women commit nonviolent, illegal activities behind the cover of their legitimate businesses.

Because white collar crimes are nonviolent, they usually have a lesser punishment than other criminal activities, but the punishments often include heavy fines and sometimes jail time.

Although dishonesty in a business setting is the common background for all white collar crimes, this category of criminal activity has a very broad spectrum and is hard to define. In order to avoid allowing loopholes in the law for these well-educated, intelligent criminals, the federal and state governments in America have laws that protect against specific, more common white collar crimes, but also general white collar crime laws to catch everything in one law.

Tax crimes are great examples of more common white collar crimes. Usually people are charged with tax crimes alongside other white collar crimes. Tax crimes include failing to file your tax returns, interfering with internal revenue laws administration and filing fake tax returns.

There are specific laws against tax crimes that prohibit crimes such as bribing tax officials, extortion and obstruction. Other more broad laws, though, will catch other types of tax crimes that do not have their own specific laws.

Another law against white collar crimes is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). This is a federal law that finds people guilty of violation if they have participated in “racketeering activity” in relation to any interstate commerce or if they have participated in the collection of unlawful debts.

Racketeering activities at the state level include the following:

• arson,
• bribery,
• gambling,
• kidnapping,
• dealing obscene materials,
• murder,
• dealing narcotics, and
• dealing other dangerous drugs.

When RICO was created, these were the most pertinent criminal activities in the white collar community, however, more recently, RICO has been used to charge against other illegal activities as well.

If you have been charged with racketeering, tax crimes or some other white collar crime, contact a criminal attorney for assistance in Rolling Meadows, Ill. Attorney Chris Cosley will help you with your criminal case today.