5 ms·
Money laundering is not the same as tax evasion. The seller doesn’t care about hiding from taxes; he cares about hiding the true source of his illegal income. I
by MontyCarloHall 5y ago
Money laundering is not the same as tax evasion. The seller doesn’t care about hiding from taxes; he cares about hiding the true source of his illegal income. If anything, paying taxes on laundered money makes it look more legit.
The only party who needs to hide their identity here is the buyer, since unmasking them would reveal that no money actually changed hands. As far as the seller’s concerned, he wants to appear as if he earned $1.56MM of legitimate taxable income selling an old N64 cartridge to some crazy anonymous buyer.
- crazygringo 5y agoRight, but the seller (who the IRS knows about) is the one who can clearly be suspected of being part of the laundering. The IRS refers signs of money laundering to the relevant investigative agency, whether when a car wash mysteriously multiplies its earnings by 50x all in cash transactions, or when somebody suddenly gets mega-gigantic super-super-suspect capital gains. The relevant agency is going to ask the auction house who the buyer was, the auction house is going to comply, they'll trace shell companies as needed, end of story. It's not anonymous once the police/feds start investigating. Money laundering is successful when it stays hidden among seemingly normal transactions. Not when it sets splashy newsworthy records.