IOUs based off of gold are a literally significant part of how many modern fiat currencies started.
What in the hell do you need to spend $50M on, right away?
Not to mention gold being around 1.4x more valuable per weight.
Those weights of either gold or currrency are going to require a vault or armored car and a crew of people with a forklift to either store or hold or move anywhere.
You’re gonna be bringing both to a bank.
Suddenly showing up with or trying to spend or sell those volumes of either gold or cash is going to get you a visit from the IRS, Secret Service, and FBI, and maybe CIA.
Cash in this day and age is a huge pain in the butt. Sure, you can get groceries and some tech. But buying a house or even a car or pay for services? Impossible to very inconvenient. Even just paying for everything in cash will be a problem if you ever get audited. You’d need to launder the money somehow and at that point you can also take the gold.
If you got a million dollars in cash you were obliged to pay taxes upon receipt, and if you did not do so and you try to deposit it, you are going to get flagged for a tax audit and subject to criminal charges.
If you got a million dollars in GOLD you don’t pay taxes until you sell it. So you can sit on it for years and then sell it and deposit it and you only pay taxes at that moment and have not broken the law in doing so.
Money is income, Gold is just gold until you turn it into money.
Good point, but after a while someone would still want to know where the gold came from. Unless you sell it so slowly that it’d be barely useful to you.
“after a while someone would still want to know where the gold came from”, five minutes after the cash has been exchanged, you’ll be quickly forgotten about. You don’t live in a damn csi episode
I do, however, live in the real world. Where anyone giving you a decent price for your gold is subject to AML laws.
Cash is honestly easier for your average person to deal with. Either way you’re either going to pay a ton of taxes or you’re going to hide everything. Gold is great if you have a trustworthy buyer that’s not operating legally, in which case you can… Turn it into cash. Woops.
The point of laundering is to wash money acquired illegally. Meaning you still have to pay the taxes.
If the 500 KG of cash lands on your lap legally and you can somehow prove that, you can just declare it as income and pay the taxes. If it’s drug money or something then you’ll have to launder.
Would it raise as many questions if you inexplicably receive a priceless painting as a gift from an anonymous benefactor and then sell it on the legitimate market?
But the cash is more liquid. Selling $70M worth of gold is a hassle and would invite unwanted attention. $50M in cash you can spend right away.
IOUs based off of gold are a literally significant part of how many modern fiat currencies started.
What in the hell do you need to spend $50M on, right away?
Not to mention gold being around 1.4x more valuable per weight.
Those weights of either gold or currrency are going to require a vault or armored car and a crew of people with a forklift to either store or hold or move anywhere.
You’re gonna be bringing both to a bank.
Suddenly showing up with or trying to spend or sell those volumes of either gold or cash is going to get you a visit from the IRS, Secret Service, and FBI, and maybe CIA.
Cash in this day and age is a huge pain in the butt. Sure, you can get groceries and some tech. But buying a house or even a car or pay for services? Impossible to very inconvenient. Even just paying for everything in cash will be a problem if you ever get audited. You’d need to launder the money somehow and at that point you can also take the gold.
Another critical difference:
If you got a million dollars in cash you were obliged to pay taxes upon receipt, and if you did not do so and you try to deposit it, you are going to get flagged for a tax audit and subject to criminal charges.
If you got a million dollars in GOLD you don’t pay taxes until you sell it. So you can sit on it for years and then sell it and deposit it and you only pay taxes at that moment and have not broken the law in doing so.
Money is income, Gold is just gold until you turn it into money.
Good point, but after a while someone would still want to know where the gold came from. Unless you sell it so slowly that it’d be barely useful to you.
“after a while someone would still want to know where the gold came from”, five minutes after the cash has been exchanged, you’ll be quickly forgotten about. You don’t live in a damn csi episode
I do, however, live in the real world. Where anyone giving you a decent price for your gold is subject to AML laws.
Cash is honestly easier for your average person to deal with. Either way you’re either going to pay a ton of taxes or you’re going to hide everything. Gold is great if you have a trustworthy buyer that’s not operating legally, in which case you can… Turn it into cash. Woops.
You’re saying I should open a car wash?
The point of laundering is to wash money acquired illegally. Meaning you still have to pay the taxes.
If the 500 KG of cash lands on your lap legally and you can somehow prove that, you can just declare it as income and pay the taxes. If it’s drug money or something then you’ll have to launder.
On the advice of counsel, I decline to answer that question.
The initial deposit would be tricky, but after that it’s pretty straightforward.
Would it raise as many questions if you inexplicably receive a priceless painting as a gift from an anonymous benefactor and then sell it on the legitimate market?
Maybe the bank won’t be too curious, but the IRS will definitely notice.
Just pay taxes on $50M. Then you’re left with around $25-35M depending on how you report it.
And that’s more than enough to live comfortably on indefinitely