Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3M, Shattering Auction Records

Re:Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3M, Shattering ... by Gargoyle on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @09:58PM (#15709965)

If you have $400 million in funds whose origin you can't account for, you move it into some opaque account to buy the painting for that $400 million. The buyer (you) remains "unknown" but now you have $400 million that you can account for, since it came from selling a painting.

In the art auction world, either or both sides can remain as anonymous as they wish, which makes this whole scheme possible.

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Re:Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3M, Shattering ... by null0pointer on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @10:32PM (#15710086)

But how do you explain your acquisition of the $400MM painting when the taxman comes knocking?

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Re:Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3M, Shattering ... by ctdonath on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @11:52PM (#15710333)

You don't. Tax man cares not how you bought it, only that tax is fully paid when sold.

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Re:Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3M, Shattering ... by jvln on Thursday November 16, 2017 @12:12AM (#15710398)

Is not it cheaper to pull this trick with higher number of no-name artists paintings by moving the money betweent two ofshore companies that belong to you. Therefore I believe this purchasecwas was a status purchase like yachts. It is a show off that a person has so much resources that can spend part of it on a peace of art that nobody can get.

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Re:Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3M, Shattering ... by mm4 on Thursday November 16, 2017 @01:57AM (#15710705)

if that was the case you might just keep the initial money and not launder them...

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