So then, however disgusting the thought, if they do make the trump $250 bill then that would be the only case where taking the cash is the better deal (putting ease of use for gold vs bills aside)
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?
wolframalpha says the gold is worth about $22m more, but it’s a no-brainer. gimme the cash ($50m). the extra ‘value’ in the gold is not worth the extraordinary measures needed to deal with it.
I agree: you’d probably pawn the gold off to some billionaire for some nominal amount less than its face value. (Would the government let you as a private citizen just sell them like $70 million in gold?) I’m assuming this is legal and in-the-clear, and it doesn’t matter if we assume it was created out of thin air.
I say “less than” because the buyers know you probably lack connections and just want it gone ASAP so you’re not robbed or worse. Still, whatever percentage hit you take can’t be anywhere near the 40% difference between the cash and the gold, and you’d probably dump it so quick that the investment opportunity cost wouldn’t matter.
Edit: Although if we assumed this was secret but entirely legal (like I somehow had $50 million but nobody but the revenue service knew), then I could maybe stomach the $20 million loss in exchange for less attention. Still, you’d be drawing a lot of suspicion trying to get that 500 kg of $100 bills into an account (or multiple) before you get found out.
Bills weigh 1g, and 1g of gold is >$100, so I’m going with gold.
Around $140/gram currently for those curious
So then, however disgusting the thought, if they do make the trump $250 bill then that would be the only case where taking the cash is the better deal (putting ease of use for gold vs bills aside)
Reminds me, that we are sadly phasing out €500
You’d think it would be popular with the drug dealers, but I guess crypto maybe has taken its place.
WWII killed the 500 bill (that was gold-backed at the time) so now ppl have to smuggle gold.
for a little while, yah ;)
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.
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
wolframalpha says the gold is worth about $22m more, but it’s a no-brainer. gimme the cash ($50m). the extra ‘value’ in the gold is not worth the extraordinary measures needed to deal with it.
So only go with bills if they’re in denominations >$100. I guess this would work better with euros.
Yeah by my calc a 1kg of $100 bills is about 100K, but the kg of gold is roughly $140k-150K (I just checked and its $144K)
But then I’d have to sell the gold…
I agree: you’d probably pawn the gold off to some billionaire for some nominal amount less than its face value. (Would the government let you as a private citizen just sell them like $70 million in gold?) I’m assuming this is legal and in-the-clear, and it doesn’t matter if we assume it was created out of thin air.
I say “less than” because the buyers know you probably lack connections and just want it gone ASAP so you’re not robbed or worse. Still, whatever percentage hit you take can’t be anywhere near the 40% difference between the cash and the gold, and you’d probably dump it so quick that the investment opportunity cost wouldn’t matter.
Edit: Although if we assumed this was secret but entirely legal (like I somehow had $50 million but nobody but the revenue service knew), then I could maybe stomach the $20 million loss in exchange for less attention. Still, you’d be drawing a lot of suspicion trying to get that 500 kg of $100 bills into an account (or multiple) before you get found out.