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What about hiding money in real estate? You don't need a bank account to hide money. This law does little more than clarify money laundering rules and regulat

What about hiding money in real estate? You don't need a bank account to hide money. This law does little more than clarify money laundering rules and regulations already in place.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
Don't you already need to provide your name and date of birth to personally buy real estate?
- silverpepsi 6y ago
  And why would you buy it personally? Even the most amateur of amateur landlords are generally aware it is well worth looking into creating an LLC and buying any investment real estate with that, lest a litigious tenant take away your entire life savings by a lawsuit about something frivolous or something you had no control over.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    >And why would you buy it personally? Because they refer to buying real estate as a way to avoid this law, so forming a limited liability company wouldn't work.
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      Actually the trick to corporate ownership of real estate goes like this: Suppose jurisdiction X has a tax on real estate transfers and there's a lovely castle there, Castle Y which Person A owns. Person A transfers the ownership of Castle Y to a holding corporation HoldCorp. There might be a tax for this, but there might well be some exemption, especially if Person A is willing to wait a while before... Person A wants to sell Person B the castle. Instead they sell HoldCorp. The castle never changed ownership, and no tax is paid. Later person C wants to buy the castle. They now buy HoldCorp from person B. The castle still didn't change owners and no tax is paid. If jurisdiction X tweaks their law you might need to tweak your procedure slightly. Maybe Person A must stay as non-beneficial owner for 5 years after the sale, or maybe you must use a two lawyer shell corporation in Bermuda to properly insulate HoldCorp from the taxes. A lawyer will sort this out for far less than the taxes, all of which goes in their pocket and isn't used on government services for ghastly poor people.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
theginger 6y ago
It deals with company registration, so if anyone had the ability to hide real estate deals via a shell company they would be just as impacted.
- highenergystar 6y ago
  It's not a bad law - but will probably catch high income professionals and small business owners who're trying to hide assets from tax authorities, shield them from legal liability or in the event of divorce etc. Sophisticated crooks will probably setup as business trading cos who will swap businesses and/or high value real estate and recognize those as revenue - and can probably use the transaction to claim depreciation and/or section 1031 tax benefits
  - infinite8s 6y ago
    Well the whole point is to prevent people from hiding assets from tax authorities.
    - murbard2 6y ago
      It is, but like all of these legislations, it pretends to be about catching money launderers.

What about hiding money in real estate? You don't need a bank account to hide money. This law does little more than clarify money laundering rules and regulations already in place.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

Don't you already need to provide your name and date of birth to personally buy real estate?

silverpepsi 6y ago
And why would you buy it personally? Even the most amateur of amateur landlords are generally aware it is well worth looking into creating an LLC and buying any investment real estate with that, lest a litigious tenant take away your entire life savings by a lawsuit about something frivolous or something you had no control over.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >And why would you buy it personally? Because they refer to buying real estate as a way to avoid this law, so forming a limited liability company wouldn't work.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    Actually the trick to corporate ownership of real estate goes like this: Suppose jurisdiction X has a tax on real estate transfers and there's a lovely castle there, Castle Y which Person A owns. Person A transfers the ownership of Castle Y to a holding corporation HoldCorp. There might be a tax for this, but there might well be some exemption, especially if Person A is willing to wait a while before... Person A wants to sell Person B the castle. Instead they sell HoldCorp. The castle never changed ownership, and no tax is paid. Later person C wants to buy the castle. They now buy HoldCorp from person B. The castle still didn't change owners and no tax is paid. If jurisdiction X tweaks their law you might need to tweak your procedure slightly. Maybe Person A must stay as non-beneficial owner for 5 years after the sale, or maybe you must use a two lawyer shell corporation in Bermuda to properly insulate HoldCorp from the taxes. A lawyer will sort this out for far less than the taxes, all of which goes in their pocket and isn't used on government services for ghastly poor people.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

theginger 6y ago

It deals with company registration, so if anyone had the ability to hide real estate deals via a shell company they would be just as impacted.

highenergystar 6y ago
It's not a bad law - but will probably catch high income professionals and small business owners who're trying to hide assets from tax authorities, shield them from legal liability or in the event of divorce etc. Sophisticated crooks will probably setup as business trading cos who will swap businesses and/or high value real estate and recognize those as revenue - and can probably use the transaction to claim depreciation and/or section 1031 tax benefits
- infinite8s 6y ago
  Well the whole point is to prevent people from hiding assets from tax authorities.
  - murbard2 6y ago
    It is, but like all of these legislations, it pretends to be about catching money launderers.