[HN Gopher] US real estate a safe haven for billions in dirty mo...
___________________________________________________________________
US real estate a safe haven for billions in dirty money, report
says
Author : warrenm
Score : 137 points
Date : 2021-08-12 19:41 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.icij.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.icij.org)
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| This was incredibly apparent to me when I recently bought a
| house.
|
| The seller was foreign, and had picked and escrow company that
| hadn't been in business for long. I was originally worried it was
| a scam and someone was trying to run off with my money, but that
| wasn't the gig.
|
| The two owners of the escrow company had owned multiple other
| escrow companies that were shut down. No complaints against them,
| so it's not like they were taking people's money and running.
|
| The escrow 'company' didn't have any sort of need for a paper
| trail of where money came from when buying my house. I imagine if
| I had shown up with a suitcase full of cash speckled with blood
| and coke they wouldn't have cared.
|
| There's likely no record of where all the money came from for me,
| (tech money) nor any of the other foreign buyers they regularly
| service. They're likely shut down again and opened with a new
| name.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| FYI, the seller didn't choose the escrow company.
|
| Either your agent/attorney or the seller's agent/attorney did.
|
| And you had the legal right to choose the company providing
| almost all of those services. Well, in most states you do.
| Federal law provides that you can choose a subset of them.
| irrational wrote:
| We recently sold a home. We did choose the escrow company.
| Neither we, nor the buyers, used an agent/attorney. We did
| the same thing when buying our new house. No agents or
| attorneys involved and the sellers chose the escrow company.
| These days, with the Internet, it really is tremendously easy
| to fill out all the paperwork correctly and do everything
| yourself. The total time we spent from beginning to end was a
| few hours total, which saved tens of thousands of dollars on
| each transaction. 10/10 I'd forgo using an agent/attorney
| next time as well.
| topkai22 wrote:
| Not only that, you absolutely should shop the optional
| services (like title, escrow, etc.) We saved thousands in
| fees because me and my agent made a couple of phone calls
| to get competing bids after the seller (really the sellers
| agent) tried to direct us to a very expensive set of
| options.
| slownews45 wrote:
| I think folks get a bit confused here.
|
| The escrow company generally should do proper KYC work, and
| does fall under AML/CFT directives.
|
| But the where did your money come from (that some folks are
| used to) comes from LENDER requirements.
|
| Lenders underwrite based on a set of facts, ideally backed up
| by what actually happens in escrow. So if the escrow company
| get's a wire from a hard money lender instead of from your bank
| (same $100K) that's going to be a big difference in lender eval
| prior to funding (they don't want you borrowing your money from
| another lender - usually a sign you faked your ability to save,
| increased DTI etc).
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| >The escrow company generally should do proper KYC work, and
| does fall under AML/CFT directives.
|
| I'm claiming that some of the escrow companies are only in
| business for a short period of time, only to pop up under a
| different name with one or two of the owners being different.
| Wouldn't that mitigate a lot of the risk of non compliance?
| nullc wrote:
| It's not anyone elses business where the money came from! If
| you were engaged in crime then the investigations of the actual
| crimes can eventually catch up with you. Expecting crime to get
| caught by surveilling your finances when you have no reason to
| be suspected of a crime is like expecting to scan your private
| correspondence for evidence of a crime.
| kube-system wrote:
| That's a fair opinion, but the law conflicts with that
| opinion in many places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_yo
| ur_customer#Laws_by_cou...
| beervirus wrote:
| KYC doesn't mean you have to interrogate your customer
| about how they earned their money.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| It does, actually. FinCEN does not fuck around.
|
| Source: just finished renewing my AML training
| dnautics wrote:
| It does. I was cautioned that due to FINcen "you cannot
| buy a house with crypto", luckily all of the gains I had
| made were tracked by a "sufficiently reputable" platform
| that it wasn't an issue.
| miohtama wrote:
| You are correct. What you describe is called proof of
| source of funds and also should be required for high
| value transactions.
| kube-system wrote:
| It depends on the jurisdiction and the particular
| transaction.
|
| In the US, for instance:
|
| > financial institutions covered by the final rule must
| take reasonable steps to: [...] (3) determine the
| source(s) of funds deposited into the private banking
| account and the purpose and expected use of the account;
|
| https://www.fincen.gov/fact-sheet-section-312-usa-
| patriot-ac...
| nullc wrote:
| > financial institutions covered
|
| being key...
| kube-system wrote:
| Yep. For instance:
|
| > banking institutions;
| beervirus wrote:
| >The escrow 'company' didn't have any sort of need for a paper
| trail of where money came from when buying my house.
|
| Why in the world would they? I've bought and sold lots of
| properties, and that has happened literally zero times ever. If
| the escrow company asked me where my money came from, I'd tell
| them to get fucked and I'd use a different company. It's
| absolutely none of their business.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| That's not my point. My point is there is now no record of
| where the money came from, anywhere.
|
| If I go deposit 500k in a TDAmeritrade account or at Wells
| Fargo, you can bet it's going to be sent out to the IRS or
| have a flag flipped somewhere and that transaction is going
| to be recorded.
| beervirus wrote:
| Why would TDA report a deposit to the IRS? If it's cash
| over 10k sure, but otherwise...
| slownews45 wrote:
| If the funds come from another account in your name and are
| not cash very unlikely for there to be further reporting,
| there already is a good paper trail.
|
| Escrow companies keep good records as well on flows in and
| out on a file. So checkable if needed.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| But what i'm saying is all these escrow companies used to
| buy multi-million dollar houses are out of business. they
| don't exist anymore. Did they transfer their records to
| some government agency?
| spicybright wrote:
| Adding on, would anyone expect ex-employees from these
| dead companies to hold onto the paper work endlessly and
| produce it when asked?
| wmf wrote:
| Due to a quirk in treaties, the US does not have to notify other
| countries about US assets held by non-US-citizens. This makes the
| US the ideal place to hide money for most of the world.
| gutitout wrote:
| Ironic that as a US citizen they want to know and audit all
| accounts. Try opening a bank account in Switzerland with a US
| passport. The US goes so far that foreign banks would rather
| not deal with you at all. Says something about the way Citizens
| are viewed in this country.
| wavefunction wrote:
| I am unsympathetic to the reaction of Swiss banking officials
| who are apparently deeply emotionally affected by the
| imposition to report on the financial assets of wealthy
| people with financial interests in the US. Switzerland's
| history of providing financial services to the very worst
| people in the world is not much of a bush to hide behind.
| 8note wrote:
| I'd be less sympathetic if the US enforced international
| law, and wasn't just bullied smaller countries to do what
| it wants.
|
| Eg. GDPR
| joecool1029 wrote:
| GDPR is a regional law, there's no international treaties
| that compel any non-European entity to follow it. I don't
| know why most Europeans have a hard time understanding
| this.
|
| Similar law exists in the US in California, with the
| difference being that it's possible for a federal court
| out there to claim jurisdiction if I, as a non-
| Californian but American resident citizen, do business
| with Californian customers.
| vmception wrote:
| okay, then just replace Switzerland with a country you
| respect then and its the same deal
| fearfulofview4 wrote:
| Indeed. FATCA is an extreme annoyance and makes Americans
| persona non grata in a lot of countries. Try getting a
| bank account or opening a mortgage as an American
| permanently abroad or an accidental one.
|
| (I wish beyond FATCA that taxation on Americans domiciled
| outside of the country would be ended. Such a waste, and
| I say this as someone who supports taxation for public
| goods.)
| triceratops wrote:
| Taxation on Americans living abroad is crazy, when you
| consider that American companies aren't taxed on their
| foreign profits.
| 8note wrote:
| They are taxed on bringing that money into the US though,
| and the owners of it are taxed once the money moves to
| individuals
| leereeves wrote:
| These requirements apply to all American citizens, not only
| wealthy people. I lived in Switzerland briefly and had a
| bank account there; it was closed (along with all other
| Americans' accounts) because the bank didn't want the
| burden of reporting.
|
| As gutitout said, "the US goes so far that foreign banks
| would rather not deal with you at all." And the worst
| burden of that falls on average citizens living abroad, not
| on the wealthy who just move their money to a different
| haven.
| izacus wrote:
| > These requirements apply to all American citizens, not
| only wealthy people. I lived in Switzerland briefly and
| had a bank account there; it was closed (along with all
| other Americans' accounts) because the bank didn't want
| the burden of reporting.
|
| Yup, can confirm - a large majority of smaller banks will
| not open a bank account for US citizens in Switzerland.
| The few larger ones will, but there's extra paperwork you
| need to fill out.
| eevilspock wrote:
| Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I have a close
| friend who moved back to Taiwan from the US and many
| banks have told her exactly this. She want to renounce
| her US citizenship because it is making life hard for
| her.
|
| (Note: I am pro all the reporting requirements. But the
| parent comment is factually true.)
| kurthr wrote:
| It's not just Switzerland. France also makes it so
| difficult to hold an account that it's not worth it. It's
| understandable since the paperwork they have to do is also
| enormous for the small profit they would make.
| coliveira wrote:
| Well, what a convenient "quirk". It is just a surprise that
| this was not engineered to work this way... It seems to me like
| the perfect tax haven.
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| You shouldn't be able to buy property using an LLC. Real people's
| legal names should be required on every transaction. If you're
| later found to be facilitating a transaction for a money
| launderer you go to jail too.
|
| Bam, we just solved 80% of this problem.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is not feasible. What is feasible is simply making the
| owners of companies visible via a search on a government
| website.
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| Why is requiring each property to have a named, non-LLC owner
| not feasible?
| monkeywork wrote:
| who should be marked down as the property owner of Apple's
| campus?
| fzzzy wrote:
| Tim Apple
| kube-system wrote:
| He doesn't own Apple. The owners of some ~17 billions
| shares of AAPL own Apple.
| [deleted]
| akomtu wrote:
| How would any largish business buy office buildings? I'm
| sure beneficiaries don't want personal liability.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I had to buy my house under a trust to avoid a stalker
| because the ownership records are public. It's still
| possible to find me if you search the trust name (but you
| need to know the name first). It's been enough obscurity so
| far. I loathe the idea of public records required to show
| my name.
| mashmac2 wrote:
| Businesses don't have one owner. Think about all of the
| properties that a company like Apple owns.
|
| Now, if you're specifically referring to residential
| properties, maybe.... although there are lots of mixed-use
| properties, and ownership of land can be separate from the
| house that's on it, etc
| fock wrote:
| so why do these businesses have to own their land then?
| Just let them only lease it...
| kube-system wrote:
| That might "solve" the Apple scenario but it's hardly
| universal. Many businesses lien or deal in land. For
| instance, mortgages as we know them would not exist
| without liens.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Since he said "non-LLC owner", it pretty clearly is
| trying to tie ownership to a single (or married) real
| person owner.
|
| They probably intended to limit this to residential
| properties.
| mindslight wrote:
| First, it destroys the entire mechanism of LLC protection.
|
| Second, privacy is a human right. You should not be forced
| to list yourself in a publicly accessible database to own
| real estate. Needing to pay a trustee to avoid this is bad
| enough.
|
| Registering the beneficial owners of entities privately
| with the government is as far as makes sense. Of course
| then we run into the problem that government isn't terribly
| incentivized to do enough analysis to catch the large scale
| evaders.
| munk-a wrote:
| > Second, privacy is a human right. You should not be
| forced to list yourself in a publicly accessible database
| to own real estate. Needing to pay a trustee to avoid
| this is bad enough.
|
| I think there is a core of truth here - individual
| persons should not be forever tied to business they've
| worked for. Everyone should always have the right to
| "walk away". However - while you're executing actions on
| behalf of a business you should not have a right to
| privacy of your actions - you are actively executing them
| and if you're doing shady or illegal things that should
| be knowable.
|
| Freedom of speech doesn't free you from the consequences
| of that speech - and I think it's unreasonable to demand
| to be free from the consequences of your actions.
|
| I do whole-heartedly agree with your final point though -
| it's the beneficiaries that should be on the hook as the
| first point of contact - agents of the company may be
| shielded by the company but the beneficiaries should
| achieve that shield by making themselves clear points of
| contact.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _while you 're executing actions on behalf of a
| business you should not have a right to privacy of your
| actions_
|
| Generally you don't. Most states require you to publicly
| declare managers of LLCs, and trustees of real estate.
|
| > _it 's the beneficiaries that should be on the hook as
| the first point of contact_
|
| Nowhere did I suggest that beneficiaries should be points
| of contact, or otherwise available in a public database.
| danans wrote:
| Because the primary function of an LLC is limiting
| financial (not criminal) liability of the owners, and the
| liability of the directly named owner would not be limited.
|
| Only 4 states in the US allow anonymous LLCs anyways:
| Delaware, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming.
|
| The problem is that even with owner's identities, unless
| you follow the trail of money very far, it's hard to know
| whether the capital is clean or not.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Saying only 4 states allow it is mostly meaningless when
| one of those states is the state that by far registers
| the most companies per year.
| munk-a wrote:
| It's not meaningless - but it is good to observe that
| there's a bit of a tragedy of the commons when it comes
| to state-wise incorporation requirements. The weakest
| link effectively dictates for the rest of the nation.
| Delaware has incredibly low incorporation fees, taxes and
| disclosure requirements - and thus every other state just
| has to shrug and take it due to federal control of
| limitations on interstate commerce.
| vmception wrote:
| there are many of states and entity types where the
| owner/member/director/principle disclosure requirement
| happens a long time later
|
| you can form companies, do the transaction, dissolve the
| company or let the state dissolve it automatically
| eventually
|
| the record of the title the stays as is, regardless who
| (or what) the property ownership passed through to
|
| but real estate aside, I know people do political
| contributions this way
| danans wrote:
| I agree that LLCs can be abused. The answer to this is
| stronger enforcement of anti-money-laundering, not
| preventing LLCs from owning property.
|
| But increasing investigation and enforcement of money
| laundering laws requires the political will of state
| prosecutors, who are usually elected officials. Only
| recently have prosecutors willing to actively go after
| this stuff (like AG Letitia James in NY).
|
| LLCs have a useful function (allowing business that limit
| their owners personal exposure to the business's
| liabilities, and vice versa).
| vmception wrote:
| I was just correcting you, I am completely fine with the
| current reality and wasnt advocating for anything
| miohtama wrote:
| Anonymous LLCs were forbidden in the EU couple of years
| back. Ultimate Beneficial Owners, or min. 25% stakes,
| need to be declared in Companies House.
|
| Of course, London real estate market complained loudly.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| In the two states where I do business it's fairly easy to
| discover information about the ownership of an LLC or other
| corporate entity. As a real estate agent I do it all the time
| using publicly available sources.
| warrenm wrote:
| >What is feasible is simply making the owners of companies
| visible via a search on a government website
|
| I'll help you out: the list you want is more-or-less the
| population of the country
| [deleted]
| wmf wrote:
| The US Corporate Transparency Act passed earlier this year
| requires LLCs to report their beneficial owners to FinCEN.
| nullc wrote:
| ... and made life much easier for stalkers, extortionists, and
| kidnappers.
|
| I suppose you'll be posting read-only email log in credentials
| for all of us too, so we can all make sure you're not doing
| anything illegal there.
| shagmin wrote:
| Then you might just find a trustee's name in its place rather
| than the person that actually paid for the property. At least
| with LLCs you can usually lookup the owners of the LLC.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| So... here's a wrinkle for you... unless you are a megacorp, a
| lender is generally going to want you to purchase in your name
| anyway, as that way your personal assets are on the line. At a
| minimum if you are purchasing through an LLC, your terms are
| not going to be as good as what you would get personally. This
| leaves out cash transactions though, where there's no lender
| involved who would have a KYC requirement. In my state of
| residence, there is actually a clause whereby you can purchase
| a property in your personal name and transfer it into the name
| of an LLC - because there are a whole slew of additional
| (legitimate) reasons as a landlord or commercial owner why you
| would want the property not in your personal name.
| warrenm wrote:
| > You shouldn't be able to buy property using an LLC
|
| That's ... an "interesting" view
|
| How do you propose companies purchase _anything_ if you won 't
| let them buy it without using "[r]eal people's legal names" "on
| every transaction"?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| That breaks (perfectly legitimate) REIT's, though.
| fock wrote:
| Germany too: https://www.oh-projekt.com/ - owned by Ajmal Rahmani
| [1], Afghan MP, son of Mir Rahman Rahmani, speaker of the Afghan
| parliament. Nephew to a Northern Alliance general - Baba Jan -
| who conveniently held a part of Bagram airbase until 2001, so
| that he supposedly had a nice jumpstart for his trucking
| business. Trucking business got fined for some millions of
| dollars after he bribed his way to US army officials (10k/month)
| [2,3]. Noone cares, probably because he has bought a cypriotic
| passport [4] - yet every politician wants to tackle real estate
| price (certainly not lowered by blood money searching for a safe
| haven) and feels a duty to the poor Afghan people.
|
| [1] this links his person with OH-Projekt
| https://politis.com.cy/politis-news/kypros/o-entimotatos-tho... -
| given that there's probably not that many Afghans with the same
| name and the 100+ MioEUR in cash to do these projects... [2]
| https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-us-funds-talib...
| [3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-afghan-companies-plead-
| gu... [4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/8/28/exclusive-
| cyprus-so...
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| As a licensed real estate agent in two states, I've got some
| familiarity with the topics at play in this article and
| discussion, but I'm not really clear on the point of the article.
| Can real estate be used to hide ill-gotten gains? Sure, as I'm
| sure plenty of other schemes can as well. What's interesting is
| that this article makes no mention of FIRPTA (IE: when they sell
| it they are going to get taxed on it) and each of the examples
| they give seem to be of someone who was eventually arrested or
| sanctioned (IE: the system is working as expected).
|
| Escrow has come up several times in this discussion, as have the
| responsibilities of buyers and sellers... so look, at least in
| the two states where I do business, the selection of an escrow
| company is the mutual agreement of buyer and seller. In fact in
| some places a real estate agent can even act as your closing
| agent in place of an escrow company, if that's really what you
| want. Escrow is there to act as a neutral third party, and so
| long as you have proof of funds to close, it's generally
| irrelevant to them where those funds came from so long as it
| meets the conditions of the contract. Several people in this
| thread have voiced the opinion that escrow should have greater
| responsibilities related to KYC, but that would be a significant
| shift in their responsibilities and really opens some interesting
| cans of worms. If you have reason to suspect your escrow company
| is operating in a questionable way, there are state agencies to
| provide oversight.
|
| What's maybe the more interesting angle to the topics of this
| article are the number of parties working to make real estate a
| completely automated process, IE: I click a button and I
| magically buy a property. As it stands, transactions generally
| have a lot of humans eyes on them, and when things don't look
| right (IE: fraud) it's that human attention that flags things,
| and I'm not sure (even as a former software engineer) how
| technology would have flagged some of the scenarios I've
| encountered.
|
| Regarding people who were able to do the paperwork yourself and
| get the transaction through to a successful closing without
| issue, go buy a lottery ticket because your story is not typical
| - there's a reason why real estate agents and real estate
| attorneys exist. I spend an insane number of hours each week
| handholding buyers and sellers through complex transactions. The
| paperwork is the "easy" part, and it can still get you sued if
| someone forgets a checkbox. Water rights, property boundaries,
| zoning, feasibility, trade fixtures... it's incredible how many
| things I have to assist with, and there's absolutely no such
| thing as a "typical" transaction.
| esalman wrote:
| US immigration system is fundamentally broken. You'll be asked no
| question about your source of income if you buy property in
| excess of half a million dollars- you'll get expedited green card
| service instead. People with black money all over the world make
| use of such loopholes- and guess what- they continue to screw US
| once they are here.
|
| Meanwhile you have hundreds of thousands of hard-working
| individuals with clean tax records and no criminal history in
| immigration limbo for 10-20 years- many of whom never get back
| any of the SS or medicare tax they contribute.
| norov wrote:
| When do people start protesting over all of the decent housing
| being gobbled up by those who are not living in these houses?
| comeonseriously wrote:
| My guess? Sooner rather than later. I think a LOT of things are
| going to come to a head sooner rather than later. Even those of
| us who make good money should be worrying about the direction
| things are going.
| simonh wrote:
| Employment is up, wages are up, booze is cheap.
| vosper wrote:
| And young people, oftn the most screwed over by housing and
| employment conditions, still don't vote
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/upshot/youth-
| voting-2020-...
|
| (probably that's part of _why_ they 're the most screwed
| over)
| warrenm wrote:
| Who cares who's buying it? What do you have against people
| buying a property and then renting it out?
| gambiting wrote:
| Nothing. That's not what's happening though. In a lot of
| places people buy houses and don't even bother renting them
| out. So not only buying prices are increasing, but renting
| prices are increasing too, because there is a group of people
| choking the supply for own financial gain.
|
| >>Who cares who's buying it?
|
| Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it, but another
| is that as a society we might want to take a step back and
| think what do we want out of our cities - if we collectively
| want affordable housing that people who live in a city can
| use, then allowing foreign investement funds to buy houses
| and then not live them is _probably_ a bad idea.
| seoaeu wrote:
| This problem is vastly overstated. The real issue is that
| there simply aren't enough homes being built for all the
| people who want to live in desirable cities
| warrenm wrote:
| Why do you care what someone else does with _THEIR_
| property?
|
| If I want to own something and leave it "empty", that's my
| prerogative
| gambiting wrote:
| But your property rights are not absolute. We don't allow
| people to dump toxic waste or burn tyres on their land,
| even if the land, the tyres and the toxic waste is
| entirely theirs. _YOUR_ prerogative ends somewhere. I
| know indidualism is a tantalising idea but we live in a
| society with rules.
|
| People collectively can decide(and frequently do decide)
| that the values important to a town, a city or an entire
| state are more important than your right to buy and leave
| property empty. There are many places which either forbid
| owning property entirely if you are a foreign national
| and don't actually live there, or impose a heavy tax on
| such purchases. Vacancy tax is a thing too.
|
| Basically if a city(and by that I mean people of the city
| and its representatives) don't want houses to be sitting
| around empty, there are laws that can be introduced to
| force people to either move in, rent or sell the place,
| or they can keep the place standing empty at a heavy
| financial penalty if they wish. Like I said earlier -
| your prerogative ends somewhere.
| [deleted]
| goodpoint wrote:
| It creates a world-wide network of exploitation of the less
| wealthy.
|
| Increasing world inequality drives massive foreign buying of
| properties that are then kept empty or rented at higher
| values.
|
| The staggering increase in rents across many cities in the
| world in the last 5 years is caused by this.
| swiley wrote:
| And the government has the nerve to come after software devs for
| some tiny fraction of this.
|
| Some days I feel like the anarchists are right.
| esalman wrote:
| It is easier to harass the weak.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is an amazing companion article from the Atlantic:
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article...
|
| It's sad that our leaders let America be abused like this to
| enrich themselves.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Non-AMP link (if you're a subscriber):
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kle...
| macinjosh wrote:
| All leaders are human. All humans are flawed. This is why
| government is always corrupted in someway. There is no way
| around it.
|
| Additionally, the humans who fancy themselves as not flawed to
| the point where they are able to effectively lead and decide
| for others is a major red flag that they are not. Which to me
| is the great irony of democracy.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Local politicians are addicted to this money, nothing will be
| done to prevent it. Look at Toronto and Vancouver.
| munk-a wrote:
| At least in Vancouver there has been a pretty dramatic shift
| from the days of Christy Clark to try and raise the
| transparency of house ownership. We've still got a long way to
| go but it looks like those politicians are being shown the
| door.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Wyoming builds its economy on it:
|
| https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/open-spaces/2015-08-14/a-...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| We could solve every problem mentioned in these comments by just
| building a lot more houses.
|
| Housing scarcity makes it an investment asset. Make that not
| true.
| Grakel wrote:
| Non citizens should not be able to own property they never
| personally occupy.
| rank0 wrote:
| What about a foreign business? Or even a domestic business
| owned by non-citizens?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| You know, why not? Why shouldn't local jurisdictions and
| communities have claim to that property and land that's
| laying fallow.
| gutitout wrote:
| How about a vacancy tax?
| brink wrote:
| How about we stop trying to solve everything with more taxes?
| This kind of solution tends to hurt the less wealthy.
|
| The weight placed on the backs of the taxpayers is heavy
| enough.
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| Richer people own more property than poor people. You're
| using an old saw that says taxation is worse for the poor
| but it's not. It's also simple to give breaks for purchases
| under x dollars or redemptions or for family homes that are
| occupied etc.
| triceratops wrote:
| Are there a lot of poor people leaving property they own
| vacant?
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Sure, there are a bunch of corporate people who live in
| PO boxes in Delaware or Wyoming with no income who own
| vacant properties. Wouldn't want to burden those poor
| folks.
| munk-a wrote:
| Vacancy taxes tend to only hit the wealthy. There are
| certainly regressive taxes we should examine (like sales
| tax on staple goods) but vacancy taxes tend to target high
| earners pretty effectively.
|
| Taxes are _generally_ a good thing since they allow society
| to function well.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Vacancy taxes exclusively hurt the wealthy who aren't
| renting out their land. That should help the less wealthy
| who don't have idle land.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Didn't work in Vancouver. Adding extra ~1% percentage tax is
| peanuts for the opportunity to park your money in safe heaven
| country.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| That's because no properties are empty. The owner's nephew,
| a Canadian Citizen thanks to birth tourism, has the condo
| his uncle bought registered as his residence.
| Avshalom wrote:
| There are numbers larger than 1.
| turminal wrote:
| Prove it!
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Who should be able to buy this vacation house: Markus, Swedish
| born foreigner who moved to America with his wife to work at an
| academic research lab or Liang, born in Saipan thanks to birth
| tourism (so a natural born US Citizen), using the money his
| parents managed to get out of China to grab as much real estate
| as he can.
| warrenm wrote:
| Why not?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| At least an upper bound on how much they should be able to own
| would be nice.
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