If you buy your bullion with a credit card, financial records exist. If you buy your bullion from a website, regardless of your method of payment, financial records exist. Your other option is to buy all of your bullion in person with cash to avoid any paper trail to you. But, as we know, bullion costs more at coinshows and coin shops most of the time than it does at JmBullion at Provident. So what do you do? Pay a little more to keep your purchases totally anonymous, or save a little by buying online?
I see what you mean, but, financial records exist with every purchase from a CC. Whether you buy an ounce of platinum, or a cutlet at the store with a CC, your bank knows it. I already pay only cash for any bullion/coin related purchases, and even try to do so on non-numismatic buys. Why are you worried about a trail, though? It's not like you purchase a pallet of silver, and I doubt that small bullion purchases would arouse any suspicion.
I'm personally not worried. My wife and I love each other and have been married a few years. I trust the government and follow tax law perfectly. I have nothing to fear from an audit because I follow the law. And no possibility of a forensic accountant digging through my spending to see if I am hiding assets in a divorce because I have a happy marriage. However, I know some worry about these things. Paranoia is rampant within our community.
We have surrendered so much of our personal information via the use of digital devices, grocery store cards and cell phones, the records that exist from a PM sale is but a drop in the bucket anymore.
I'm not sure I "have nothing to fear" from a process that would consume many, many extra hours of my time, and does carry significant risk. I follow the law to the best of my knowledge and ability, but I don't have a professional accounting or legal staff, and it's quite possible auditors would find errors in my accounting.
Privacy does not exist anymore, and as a 16 year old, you should know that more than the adults. When you make a gmail account, it asks for your full name, phone number, and date of birth. This site also asks for your name and your date of birth.
Phone number is optional on gmail, and DOB is optional on Cointalk. But, I agree- information today is in too many places.
I'm well aware of the things in place that can be detrimental to my privacy. But I also have a few tricks up my sleeve to keep prying eyes away.
Remember when Al Bundy would say "LETS ROCK"? I say that every morning as I leave the house. I'm not afraid of them.
"Our community" ? What's that, the anti silver flea circus in your pocket? Oh, loved that Waltons redux drivel. Goodnight John Boy.
So, lets say that you did buy silver from an online source... there is zero traceability of it afterwards as long as you don't sell it online. If the government ever started collecting silver, you could just bury it or give it to someone to hold for you. What I'd be more worried about is if it ever came to that point, America would have much bigger problems.
No one thinks the government is going to come for our precious metals. You've misread the post. The point is that when you buy something online, a paper record exists of that purchase. There is a clear record of you transferring your money to a valuable. If you were to get divorced you couldn't claim you didn't have that money because you spent it. A forensic accountant could dig through your family's finances, find records of a bullion purchase you made, and be able to show you spent x amount of money on bullion. Thus, preventing you from being able to hide part of your estate in the time of the divorce. And thus claiming that bullion represents part of your estate and therefore part of what your partner is entitled to in a divorce. This could also apply in the case of someone suing you. You could declare bankruptcy in attempt to avoid paying the full judgement, but again, the court could discover you have more assets than you claim and might not allow the bankruptcy to go through. Bullion buyers often believe they are investing in something no one else knows about. Unlike stocks or bonds which have a clear paper trail. However, my point is that you are not actually hiding any of your worth by buying bullion if you buy online. It is as well known to an interested party as putting money in the bank, buying property, or investing in stocks or bonds. The ONLY way to hide your bullion buying is to pay in cash from a local coin shop. That way, if such and such court case tried to look into your assets in 2019 and found you earned $100,000 that year and tried to account for all of that money, you could say "I spent it, in cash, on fast food, movie tickets, clothes, etc. And no one could prove otherwise that you had actually used it to buy bullion and stashed it away to protect yourself from divorce, bankruptcy, lawsuits, etc. However, if you paid with a credit card at your coin shop or placed online order using bank transfers, paypal, echeck, or credit card, there's a record of your purchase. And now your bullion can be discovered. Does that make sense?
No matter how you buy it or sell it, disguising a taxable profit from the IRS is a hazardous undertaking. I know I post this often. That’s because I had a friend who did nine months at the Oakdale federal prison camp in Louisiana. He, too, thought his transactions were well disguised. Don’t want to see anyone here suffer the same fate.
That's right. And that's just the second half of what I was writing about. All I was describing was possessing the asset. We hadn't even gotten to the point of what happens when you sell it. But good point.