My sincere hope is that the Ukraine war might actually lead to changes such that people (both foreigners and domestic) won't be able to hide or park money in re

My sincere hope is that the Ukraine war might actually lead to changes such that people (both foreigners and domestic) won't be able to hide or park money in real estate. I'm not hopeful that this will happen but I can but hope. In the UK in particular the government is beholden to the bankers in the City of London and they want no such crackdown. It's already the case where when you buy real estate in the UK with an LLC (which should be illegal IMHO) you need to declare who the beneficial owner is with the company registered with Companies House. This is routinely not done and there is absolutely no enforcement. That would be a start but it doesn't go near far enough. Another example: all US citizens and permanent residents have to declare all their foreign assets to the government every year, typically twice: once to the IRS, another time to the Treasury Department. These forms are known as Form 8939 and FBAR respectively. Guess what you don't have to declare? Real estate holdings. Why is there a carve-out for real estate? It's disgusting. We have a housing crisis in the West. It's a complex problem but there are a number of factors: 1. NIMBYism stopping building of denser living; 2. Tax advantages and policies that make it more profitable to build ultra-luxury housing; and 3. The ease to which the wealthy can park their money in such real estate, which creates a lot of demand. I would like to see this all go much farther. If you own real estate in a given jurisdiction you should be a resident for tax purposes in that jurisdiction. That should allow the government to tax your worldwide income. Want the anonymity of ownership through an LLC? Without a clear beneficial owner established then just punitively tax such property. Anonymity is a privilege you should pay through the nose for. I'd accept a carve-out for owning "working" property, which is to say an apartment building where the units are rented out. But individual residential property? Get the hell out. And any property where no beneficial owner can be established (and thus taxed) should just be seized. We seem totally fine with seizing the assets of poor people (ie civil forfeiture). Let's apply that to wealthy tax evaders, oligarchs and despots instead.