Fine Art: the world’s most secret tax scam

one of the biggest scams that exist on planet earth is something that's hidden perfectly in plain sight it's an illusion that everyone has heard about but something that almost nobody knows the truth about the industry the scam takes part in has been called one of the most manipulated markets in the world and no it's not banking the oil industry or the media but it's an industry that allows some of the richest people on the planet to escape paying taxes using some of the most sneaky practices you can imagine that industry is art before i get into this video just a quick disclaimer i do believe that there are practices available to everybody that allow us to legally reduce our tax and these things can be utilized if you so choose to do so however what doesn't sit right with me is when there are certain systems and practices created that are only there available to the very very top players and not to the rest of us and so this video is to uncover some of these systems and to show you that there are certain things in the world that are nothing more than extremely well-crafted narratives in order to make you believe something about a topic when really it's been designed for a completely different purpose and the world of fine art is a perfect example of this so with that out of the way let's dive into the world of very expensive art and how it's manipulated to suit the elite before i go any further just letting you know we have an amazing newsletter that people genuinely rave about so if you want to find out what the buzz is all about there is a link in the bio okay so how do the ultra rich use the world of fine art in order to avoid paying taxes well it's actually quite simple when i first heard about it it blew my mind because it was not complicated it was very straightforward for this scam to work you first got to own some very expensive art but here's the problem if you just go out and buy a 10 million dollar painting that will mean you've got to actually spend that amount of money to buy the art and we don't want to do that we want as much of our money as possible staying in our bank accounts so what do you do well instead you just make a 10 million painting and here's how you do it first you have to find yourself an artist someone up and coming that has a history of creating art maybe this artist has a few paintings being displayed in a small local art gallery but they definitely haven't broken into the mainstream luxury art world just yet you feel like the artist has potential but what you really care about is their potential to save you millions of dollars in tax money so what you do is you buy a few of their paintings and for the sake of the illustration in this video let's say you spend ten thousand dollars in total for a few of their paintings great you have yourself some art and it hasn't cost you a fortune however you want it to cost you a fortune so you can use it as a tax write-off this is the point where you call in some of your friends for help because you're unbelievably rich you're connected to a lot of people in the high-end art world people like gallery owners art critics the appraisers the kind of people that decide what art is worth a lot and what art isn't your art appraiser friend could hypothetically value the new painting you just bought at 10 million dollars because that's what they do for a living but if they do that for a new nobody artist without name they might lose credibility basically you have got to make this artist appear as if the art would be worthy of being sold for a really high price point so this is the part where we have to make the artist famous and we have to boost the value of what their art is perceived at so let's hype them up a little bit shall we to get the artist's name out there you hire a publicist who gets them interviewed in magazines and gets them featured in news and art journals with the help of your art industry friends you host some events in bigger galleries getting the new artists work in front of people that matter before long people are starting to recognize the artist's work they're not da vinci but certain people in art circles at least know their name and now that the artist's work is in some bigger galleries people start buying their art at higher prices sure making this happen for the artists cost you a little bit of money but that's no problem because this is all about to pay off for you in a big way if all of a sudden you're watching this and you just have this unexplainable urge to become an artist and you might not be the best artist or you just want to hone your skills i have the perfect solution for you thank you skillshare for sponsoring this video skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creators explore new skills deepen existing passions and get lost in creativity class topics on skillshare include illustration graphic design photography film and video marketing productivity freelance and entrepreneurship web development and so much more it's curated specifically for learning meaning that there are no ads and they're constantly adding premium classes so you can stay focused and follow wherever your creativity takes you whether you're a dabbler a pro a hobbyist or a master you are a creative discover what you can make with classes for every skill level the first 1 000 of my subscribers to click the link in the description will receive one month worth of skillshare for free so you can start exploring your creativity today okay so now the artist looks a lot more credible they look hot it's so hot right now people are starting to talk about them and they are sharing their work on social media and there is serious buzz around their work and for you it only cost you some chump change of a couple hundred thousand dollars so now that is out of the way it is time to get your art industry friends to start working for you now that the new artist name is buzzing in the art world your art appraiser friend can get to work valuing some of their paintings of course for a small fee on their behalf and wouldn't you know it one of the paintings you bought for ten thousand dollars when the artist was unknown is now worth ten million dollars this is because the artist isn't unknown anymore the name is out there and the work is in demand this kind of price manipulation in the art industry is extremely common and as journalist alison schrager puts it would be illegal in most other industries and because of the price manipulation you now have a painting worth 10 million dollars that's been certified by a professional in the industry who is willing to validate its price excellent so now you have yourself a 10 million dollar painting and it's cost you roughly let's say 250 000 so now we put the final piece of our tax saving power play into action and we do this by giving away our expensive painting governments of many countries love it when people are charitable and in many cases we'll give them a tax break for donating their assets so at this point i'm sure i don't have to explain to you what you do with your now newly valuable painting but in case you're not following along yep you would just donate that 10 million painting to a charity of your choice and voila your tax savings scam is now complete so in this example you've hypothetically spent ten thousand dollars on a painting and then an extra couple of hundred thousand dollars on fees to promote the artist's work and fees for the art industry friends but by spending that money you've essentially saved yourself nine million dollars plus in tax every single year and you can rinse and repeat this as much as you like to bring your tax bill down to zero making more money no problem just artificially inflate some more art and then donate it to a charity of your choice and so this is just one example of how corrupt and controlled the fine art world actually is but are you interested in going down a little bit deeper into the rabbit hole i'm so glad you asked just quickly if you're finding this information really interesting like comment and share so that more people are aware of this craziness in the example i just gave of using the fine art world in order to dodge taxes it only really works if everybody is on the same page in the industry so we're talking art gallery owners we're talking appraisers we're talking art dealers and a ton of other people because of this the fine art world keeps itself quite a tight-knit community you might think that if you've got the money you can just walk in and buy a super expensive painting of a gallery wall well not so fast for example the actor daniel radcliffe who played harry potter is rich very rich it's estimated that his net worth is around 110 million dollars but even he can't buy whatever art he wants a few years ago he tried to buy a multi-million dollar painting by the artist jim hodges but radcliffe was rejected by the art dealer who said he was waiting for someone more prestigious to buy the painting what the art dealer really meant was that he wanted someone who was a known art collector to buy it because that would help drive up future prices of the artist's work or potentially even more shady someone who was part of the huge underground network of money laundering that serves those in the fine art world in the art world radcliffe is basically a nobody he's not part of the big boys club where they all help each other out but do you want another example what if you are a legitimate art collector and you actually really do want to buy a very expensive painting let's say that there is a painting worth 50 million dollars that you have your eye on but the problem is if you buy that painting it means that you're going to then have to pay sales tax on that painting and you don't want to do that well good news there is a solution for that as well if you've seen the movie tennis you'll probably know that it was pretty much completely fiction except for one big tax saving detail in the movie the protagonist enters a freeport in norway which contains a lot of interesting stuff including a load of fine art in the real world freeports definitely exist they're basically high security warehouses that exist all around the world and are special tax-free zones that rich people can stash their stuff in so if you just happen to buy a super expensive painting at auction and have it delivered to a freeport you'll never need to pay sales tax on it or any other tax for that matter in fact one freeport in switzerland is estimated to hold over 100 billion dollars in art for some of the richest people in the world art they don't even have to pay tax on free pots have been called the greatest museums nobody can ever see a quote that came from jean-luc martinez the director of the louvre in paris so basically whenever you hear next the story of some super expensive painting or other art piece selling for an insane amount of money just stop and think twice because it could be a legitimate sale or it could be a rich person who has completely gained the system to help line their friends pockets or to save them a ton of money in taxes taxes that your government has to get from somewhere to pay for everything that we enjoy in developed society so instead of getting it from the rich art lovers they get it from you instead is it legal yes is it fair definitely not if you enjoy this video and you find it valuable please make sure you like comment and share it around so more people know about it also we have an amazing newsletter people rave about it link and bio and if you're interested in finding out more about our beautiful online private membership that is all about finance and freedom there's a link in bio as well for that and i will see you in the next one

Channel: Abundantia

Views: 390,781

Keywords: fine art, high end art, fine art scams, high end art scams, art and taxes, freeports, freeports art, swiss freeport, freeports explained, art auctions, art market, manipulated artwork, fine art manipulation, art tax write off, art tax loopholes, art tax avoidance, fine art tax scam, art of tax evasion, fine art market is a scam, paintings taxes, fine art taxes, fine art tax, high end art tax, economics of art, art market economics, fine art scam, scams in art, fake art

Id: p__7ndRU6Ho

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 17 2022