U.S. GOVERNMENT WILL TRY TO TRACK ANONYMOUS CASH REAL ESTATE BUYERS Meanwhile, in Manhattan and Miami: The U.S. Treasury Department announced an upcoming trial run for keeping tabs on the identities of “luxury real estate” buyers in 2 high-volume markets, citing concerns that cash purchases by anonymous shell corporations are being used to safeguard ill-gotten assets. From March through August, title insurance companies in Manhattan will be required to identify and report the buyers of any property priced above $3 million; in Miami-Dade County, the threshold will be $1 million. The Department says that permanent nationwide reporting requirements could be developed if many sales involving suspicious money are uncovered during the trial period. [New York Times]
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Well, that’s the dugh heard around the world. I’m waiting for Commonsense to describe his technique for getting around it.
That’s a token move with no teeth. If title companies will be required to report, we’ll move to table closings at attorneys offices, if attorneys will be forced to report (which I seriously doubt) then we’ll book the sales as asset swaps instead of cash sales.
Nice call, J. But it’s not as nefarious as it sounds. When they say cash sales, they don’t mean El Chapo showing up with a duffelbag full of cash, it’s just a purchase without a loan. So the money comes from a bank, so it already went through a lot of verification to get there (especially in those amounts). Also, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to conceal ownership of property, legal tax havens, civil lawsuit protections, protect the asset as emergency funds in case of business failure, etc.
Meme to the a Feds: real estate transaction will be structured under the $3 million limit… In the meantime $700 TRILLION plpus in derivatives are waiting to blow up the global economy.. Way to to again Feds.. pick on the obvious low hanging morsels…