Investing General Discussion

Fogel said:

I did more reading on trit and decided to open a small long position. I got in at 13.90, wish I got in a little lower but if it performs the way it's supposed to then its not that big a deal.

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It has been a long patience play for me. No one knew anything about it or had heard of it and its not "sexy". The Oppenheimer coverage initiation finally got some people hearing about it. It usually traded around 100k shares and today its at 700k. There were some questions about the audit that happened pre-merger in terms of their financials and those rumors dogged the stock for a while.

Tarrant said:

For crypto Investors

IRS is ‘setting the trap’ for bitcoin and virtual currency investors on 2020 tax form

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is making it harder for taxpayers to conceal cryptocurrency transactions.

www.yahoo.com

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Question since I don’t really know that much about crypto...it’s more or less untraceable isn’t it ? Let’s say you sold (whatever) using Bitcoin and made $100k...is there any reasonable way at all the government would even know?

Captain Suave said:

Tax fraud isn't hard, but it's why the IRS totally asshammers the people they do prosecute.

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I have some friends who own 5-6 Bay Area houses...millions of dollars in assets, and they rent them all at 3-4k a month. They get paid by check for all of them and don't pay taxes for any of them and have been doing this since the 80s.

I was actually blown away when they told me this, nonchalantly...I'd be shitting bricks to know the IRS could see I was depositing so much money every month for decades and never paying taxes for it. They're in their mid 70s now and since they haven't got caught by now I'm sure they don't give a shit. Even at their age I'm sure the IRS would nail them to the wall.

Khane said:

This... doesn't make any sense.

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Sure it does. I asked a banker friend about it. He said the IRS does not have any mechanism to just bulk look at bank accounts and see if they match against taxes.

Obviously if you get audited that’s different.

Khane said:

That's not why it doesn't make sense. If any one of your friends accidentally screws up any part of their other taxes and gets audited they are fucked. If you're getting paid in cash then sure, plenty of people would just not report it. Getting paid by check and tempting fate? That's just foolish. They are reporting those properties and also reporting 0 income and taking maximum losses on those properties, presumably. This is not something that just falls through the cracks over an extended period of time.

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Oh agreed totally on that. I have no idea how they’ve got away with it.

Their daughter who I’m also friends with owns a house and an apartment in Oakland, rents them, and is doing the same thing. She’s making around $5.5k a month from those two and not paying any taxes on it, but she also has a full time job.

I asked her if she was worried about getting audited and she simply said “my parents have been doing this since the 80s” and shrugged.

lol wtf. Certainly theyve been blackmailed once or twice right?

Khane said:

The scariest part of that is the IRS doesn't give a warning or a grace period. If they find it they just say "Hey, here's all the taxes and penalties plus late fees you owe for the last 30 years of indiscretions. Have a nice day and good luck!" and unless you know some world class tax attorneys there isn't much recourse. You're going to pay.

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Yah...my dad’s company many years back when he owned one got audited, not due to any fault of his own but his in-house accounting person made some mistakes in how they were paying taxes.

I was there one day when an IRS official came in with a badge and everything and wanted to talk. It was tense. He ended up having to pay something like $100k in back taxes. The accountant dude was literally sweating and shaking. He quit soon after.

Fogel said:

I would be surprised if they tell their tenants this as well. Otherwise, the tenants would have no reason to suspect they weren't doing things by the book.

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There’s no way they’d tell their tenants about it, someone would get pissed off and report it. I was actually shocked they even brought it up with me. I wouldn’t do it in the first place, but if I were I wouldn’t tell a damn soul about it.

These people are reasonably well off as it is and don’t really need to grift taxes. Also aside from the fact the older couple live in a $2-3m house up north they don’t even spend their money on anything, drive old ass cars, have no luxury items to speak of, so it’s silly all around.

My banker friend — who funny enough investigates large scale banking fraud for Wells Fargo — said he wasn’t at all surprised they’re doing it and haven’t got caught.

Tarrant said:

For crypto Investors

IRS is ‘setting the trap’ for bitcoin and virtual currency investors on 2020 tax form

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is making it harder for taxpayers to conceal cryptocurrency transactions.

www.yahoo.com

Click to expand...

If I gotta pay,they gotta pay.

Khane said:

That's not why it doesn't make sense. If any one of your friends accidentally screws up any part of their other taxes and gets audited they are fucked. If you're getting paid in cash then sure, plenty of people would just not report it. Getting paid by check and tempting fate? That's just foolish. They are reporting those properties and also reporting 0 income and taking maximum losses on those properties, presumably. This is not something that just falls through the cracks over an extended period of time.

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Yeah, if you're depositing this in the bank then paying your property taxes cash it probably reduces a lot of questions that might be asked of you. But it's really hard to get away with owning multiple houses worth millions and declaring $0 in income for years. The father of one of my friends got caught for this. He sells cars in New York that he buys in Florida, has them shipped up to Long Island and sells them at steep markups. He owned 5 houses in Florida and his house in Long Island and had a reported income of under $30k a year.

IRS eventually got on his case and he settled with them for a $400k cash payment then went back to doing what he was doing.