Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Really?

What the fuck goes on out in Oakland?

Occupy Oakland has voted to deposit $20,000 with Wells Fargo Bank -- just days after Occupy protesters shattered windows of one of the bank's downtown Oakland branches during the group's attempt to stage a general strike in the embattled East Bay city.

The decision was posted at Occupy Oakland's site for its general assembly. According to the link, the group made the decision to deposit the $20,000 with Wells at a meeting on Monday night.

Wells Fargo quickly trumpeted the decision.

...


Have these idiots forgotten what they're protesting? Fucking morons.

Thanks to DCblogger for the link.

10 comments:

Gordon said...

That's the dumbest thing they've done. I hope they find the rocket scientist responsible and make him flip off an Oakland cop. Yeesh.

BadTux said...

The issue is that OWS Oakland haven't incorporated and opened their own bank account yet. Their lawyer is going to hold the funds in a Wells Fargo trust account under his own name but in trust to OWS Oakland until OWS Oakland gets their non-profit tax ID and can open their own credit union account.

So no, OWS Oakland is *NOT* depositing money into a Wells Fargo account -- their lawyer is. And the lawyer is doing it via a Wells Fargo trust account because Wells Fargo is set up to do trust accounts for lawyers already, whereas credit unions normally aren't set up to do that sort of thing.

-- Badtux the Paying Attention Penguin

Fixer said...

And? Walk into a CU and deposit it in a passbook savings account until they can get shit squared away. It's the PERCEPTION.

Anonymous said...

1. What Fixer said.

2. There are NO community banks in Oakland or San Francisco??

Jay in N.C.

BadTux said...

YOU NEED A TAX ID NUMBER TO OPEN A BANK ACCOUNT.

That's the law. That's been the law for at LEAST 30 years (when I started my first business thirty years ago, that was one of the things I needed in order to open the company business account). The IRS wants to know who's going to pay the income taxes on the interest paid by that passbook account. No tax id number = no account. I can't believe we have a business owner posting on this thread who doesn't know that!

In this case, an attorney offered to open a trust account for them until they got their tax ID number. The problem is that credit unions aren't set up to "do" trust accounts, at least not here in the state of California.

So anyhow, the question is this: people are in jail and need medical help *now*. Should we wait the (minimum of) weeks for the IRS to grant non-profit status and generate a tax ID number before accepting donations to help with lawyer fees and medical expenses? Or should we do it *now*, perception be damned?

OWS Oakland has done a number of bone-headed things. But this isn't one of them.

-- Badtux the Disgusted Penguin

Fixer said...

Dude, I can walk into a CU today with $20K in cash and they'd take it happily. The tax ID is my SSAN. The lawyer could have done it that way too until they got this squared away and incorporated. This was ill thought out.

BadTux said...

Yes, the lawyer could have done that. But then the money would be *his*, not OWS's, as far as the CU and IRS is concerned, which could cause problems for OWS accessing the money in the future. PLUS he would also be *personally* responsible under IRS for the taxes on the interest on OWS's money, because it's not a trust account. Do you honestly believe a lawyer's going to accept that tax liability even for the few pennies at 1% interest on $30K? Dude. Drop a lawyer in a shark tank, the sharks leave him alone due to professional courtesy. Just sayin ;).

OWS Oakland already said they're going to open their own bank account at a credit union as soon as they get their tax ID. The question is what to do between now and then. The have-the-lawyer-hold-it-in-trust idea isn't ideal, but (shrug).

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

BadTux said...

Oops, one more thought. Under IRS rules, the $30K deposited into a *personal* account under the lawyer's tax ID would be "unreported income" and the lawyer would be responsible for paying taxes on the *full* amount. Yet another reason why no lawyer with a bean's worth more sense than Orly Taitz would *ever* do that. A trust account absolves the lawyer of that tax liability. But credit unions don't do trust accounts. (Believe me, I'm a CU member, I *know* what kind of accounts the four biggest credit unions here in the Bay Area offer, and that ain't one of'em).

- Badtux the Tax Penguin

Anonymous said...

I think the other thing may be is that this is their way of saying "we're sorry" to Wells Fargo, for the bad action of a few "black bloc" crazies in vandalizing a Well Fargo branch.

Gordon said...

All that having been said, they should have used a different bank than one of the ones at the center of the whole protest. Perception is reality.