Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   2xfo (rndanger@infosec.exchange)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jan-2024 22:58:59 JST 2xfo

   in reply to

   • Emeritus Prof Christopher May

   @ChrisMayLA6
   I've noticed this tendency in the US too. Someone will break a law and instead of using the existing laws against them a legislator will make a newer more specific law targeting the practice. This does two things in my mind: 1. It gives the impression that the law was not sufficient or that nothing illegal even happened; 2. Passing the new law takes all the attention away from enforcing the existing law, and even the infraction that caused the discussion to start can be obscured by this conversation.

   I think the reason they do it is to look like they're helping. "How many bills did you pass" often qualifies as a metric for being good at legislating and usually no one looks closer than that. Maybe bills are their hammers and they just don't know how to use another tool

   • Embed this notice
     Emeritus Prof Christopher May (chrismayla6@zirk.us)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jan-2024 22:59:00 JST Emeritus Prof Christopher May

     'A law that’s not publicly enforced may as well not exist. Only saints will comply with it. The rest – the people we really want to comply with it – won’t bother.

     If we want to drive tax evasion out of the corporate world, we don’t need new rules – we just need to enforce the ones we have'!!!

     Dan Neidle on the news that #HMRC hasn't made one prosecution under a law interned to punish the facilitation of #taxevasion...

     #ruleoflaw #tax

     https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/20/a-tax-evasion-law-not-publicly-enforced-may-as-well-not-exist

     Nitin Pai repeated this.