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A fun "thought" experiment? Given the time of year (just after a fiscal quarter/year end) and given that I am a dual citizen (New Zealand and USA), I found the

A fun "thought" experiment? Given the time of year (just after a fiscal quarter/year end) and given that I am a dual citizen (New Zealand and USA), I found the following demonstration particularly intriguing: a bank customer (friend) had some not insignificant funds in several personal accounts in their NZ banks as of December 31st. At 10 am on Sunday, January 1st (NZ time), it was "still" 3 pm Saturday, December 31st in the central time zone in the US. I watched as they withdrew a large amount of USD cash from multiple debit cards on their NZ accounts at some midwestern ATM machine(s), then turn around and deposit said cash into their US bank accounts. Net effect: their net worth showed accumulated fiscal year-end bank balances of twice the "not insignificant amount of funds" (according to cash methods of GAAP). They went on to hint at the fact there are 24 time zones on this planet (more actually). I asked about the legality of such antics. They said they were not sure other than any obvious fraud on using such financial statements for any fraudulent financial benefit. They explained how the daily batch processing of bank transactions hurt customers real time cash flow, and felt it was one way to rectify things to the customer advantage. Hmmmm

fiestaman 4y ago
Layman here: what are the consequences of having a net worth of accumulated fiscal year-end bank balances of twice the "not insignificant amount of funds"?
- stevenjgarner 4y ago
  On the face of it, it looks like you have twice the liquid net worth than you actually have (or more with multiple countries). Often financial statements will be prepared by different accounting firms in different countries, and each set says you had the same amount of money on hand on the same date, even though you only had one. It is not so much a delusion of wealth as a delusion of time. When people refer to a date (such as a fiscal year end), they think that date is the same everywhere but of course midnight on December 31st happens in every one of the 24+ time zones.

fiestaman 4y ago

Layman here: what are the consequences of having a net worth of accumulated fiscal year-end bank balances of twice the "not insignificant amount of funds"?

stevenjgarner 4y ago
On the face of it, it looks like you have twice the liquid net worth than you actually have (or more with multiple countries). Often financial statements will be prepared by different accounting firms in different countries, and each set says you had the same amount of money on hand on the same date, even though you only had one. It is not so much a delusion of wealth as a delusion of time. When people refer to a date (such as a fiscal year end), they think that date is the same everywhere but of course midnight on December 31st happens in every one of the 24+ time zones.