So my dealer says...Taxes, inheritance, and the best-laid plans
Weiss
Posts: 9,942 ✭✭✭✭✭
I stopped in to the B&M today and bought a few small things. When my dealer quotes me a price, I routinely say it back to him before I count out the money--and I always say it back low:
Him: That'll be $350.
Me: $325, you said?
It's something that I've done for the 20+ years I've been going to him, and he knows I'm just being dumb.
Today I told him the reason I do that is because of Mr. X, the father of a childhood friend who was notoriously tight and who I know visited my dealer often back in the day.
My dealer said I've got a story about Mr. X...
Seems he was going big buying gold years ago. Would have been mid-1980s, I think. He took a few saints he'd bought from my dealer to a dealer in the next town, probably to see if he could flip them. That dealer quoted him a ridiculously low price. Rather than be offended, it got him thinking. Seems the inheritance laws were (or still are) that anything above $600,000 were taxed heavily. Now Mr. X's mother was quite old and had well over $1M she was going to will to Mr. X. So he convinced her to dump the entire amount into ANACS photocert MS65+ saints. The idea was that when she died, he'd take them out of their photocert flips, and have that dealer in the next town appraise them at his crazy low buy prices, thus avoiding the trigger on the estate tax. Once the appraisal was finished, he'd simply put the saints back in their respective certs and sell them elsewhere at full MS65+ value.
But we're all toting this mortal coil. Fast-forward to a few years ago. Mr. X passes away somewhat unexpectedly. His wife, not knowing any better, takes several rolls of presumably generic $20 gold pieces to the dealer Mr. X apparently trusted enough to appraise the collection his mother had willed to him--who willingly buys them from the grieving widow. It seems Mr. X had neglected part B of his plan--the reintroduction of the coins to their photocerts. And he'd never mentioned the scheme to his wife. The widow's stepson, my childhood friend, found the photocerts neatly bundled in an otherwise empty safe deposit box several months after the sale.
I don't know the particulars--he probably did save money on the estate tax. Did he lose money with early ANACS MS65 saints priced late 1980s vs. today? He had a great eye for quality and I don't doubt the coins he bought were exceptional pieces. In any event, I believe Mrs. X would have sold the coins at about the time of the low gold prices a few years ago.
Him: That'll be $350.
Me: $325, you said?
It's something that I've done for the 20+ years I've been going to him, and he knows I'm just being dumb.
Today I told him the reason I do that is because of Mr. X, the father of a childhood friend who was notoriously tight and who I know visited my dealer often back in the day.
My dealer said I've got a story about Mr. X...
Seems he was going big buying gold years ago. Would have been mid-1980s, I think. He took a few saints he'd bought from my dealer to a dealer in the next town, probably to see if he could flip them. That dealer quoted him a ridiculously low price. Rather than be offended, it got him thinking. Seems the inheritance laws were (or still are) that anything above $600,000 were taxed heavily. Now Mr. X's mother was quite old and had well over $1M she was going to will to Mr. X. So he convinced her to dump the entire amount into ANACS photocert MS65+ saints. The idea was that when she died, he'd take them out of their photocert flips, and have that dealer in the next town appraise them at his crazy low buy prices, thus avoiding the trigger on the estate tax. Once the appraisal was finished, he'd simply put the saints back in their respective certs and sell them elsewhere at full MS65+ value.
But we're all toting this mortal coil. Fast-forward to a few years ago. Mr. X passes away somewhat unexpectedly. His wife, not knowing any better, takes several rolls of presumably generic $20 gold pieces to the dealer Mr. X apparently trusted enough to appraise the collection his mother had willed to him--who willingly buys them from the grieving widow. It seems Mr. X had neglected part B of his plan--the reintroduction of the coins to their photocerts. And he'd never mentioned the scheme to his wife. The widow's stepson, my childhood friend, found the photocerts neatly bundled in an otherwise empty safe deposit box several months after the sale.
I don't know the particulars--he probably did save money on the estate tax. Did he lose money with early ANACS MS65 saints priced late 1980s vs. today? He had a great eye for quality and I don't doubt the coins he bought were exceptional pieces. In any event, I believe Mrs. X would have sold the coins at about the time of the low gold prices a few years ago.
We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame
--Severian the Lame
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.....and once your dead stocks, futures, and even the spot price of gold tend to not matter any more
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