This threat is a more ‘honest’ shakedown than other such operations. All the thuggery imaginable behind the threats in this Orwellian advertisement, and more, are already being carried out in Maine. At least PA openly reveals its mentality and possibly operates within some kinds of limits.

Maine Revenue Services shakes down innocent people who don’t even own the taxes. MRS is going back at least as far as 13 years demanding ‘proof’ of taxes paid under new ‘interpretations’ retroactively changing tax policy without legislative approval. It imposes ‘estimated’ taxes and punitive double-digit ‘interest’ plus ‘penalties’ doubling the take on transactions that never occurred. It threatens to seize property worth far more than the alleged tax, also intimidates people with the false claim that they have no right to appeal (not that an objective hearing is possible), deliberately runs up legal costs with abusive litigation tactics, demands under state law that the victim must prove his innocence, maintains and operates off an ‘enemies list’, smears victims who dare to contest or speak out against the agency, and stonewalls state senators investigating complaints of abuse. A specialty is bullying non-residents under a strategy called “exporting taxes”. See http://MaineTaxAbuse.org.

This state-sponsored organized crime is in addition to Maine’s extraordinary high taxes that long ago killed the economy and drove out most industry. Maine doesn’t need to advertise its threats like PA does — the legislature keeps giving MRS more money to hire more enforcers, in the name of ‘compliance’, in a panicky attempt to close enormous budget gaps. Taxes and controls under non-objective law imposed at the ‘discretion’ of agency bureaucrats have turned Maine into a third world country, with everything that implies about abuse of civil rights.