The Cellar - Weird News

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Sorry, I should have also linked to this story I also saw.

It speculates that the coins are the same gold coins that were stolen from the US Mint in 1900 in San Freancisco. $30,000 of coins were stolen, and these coins have a face value of $28,000 and are in the same area, and the mint dates of the coins are a few years prior to the theft.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt (Post 893568)

I bet the finders wind up not getting to keep anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV (Post 893569)

Buried on the property they've owned for years? I'd be surprised if they were prevented from keeping it, or keeping the proceeds.

If those are the stolen coins, they might get a reward, but, my guess is they're boned.

If they get to keep them, then they are going to owe about 47% of their value in federal and state taxes. And they have 46 days to come up with the roughly $5 million.

Linky

The moral of the story?
Shut your mouth

Well, they found the coins last year, and are only opening their mouths now.

I imagine they shut their mouths and tried to map all the scenarios out. They considered just selling a few coins a year to stay under the radar, but at that rate they would die long before they had enough money to make a difference. So then they figured they should unload it all at once. It's worth more in antique coin form than it would be melted down, so it would be better to keep them as coins. How can you unload thousands of antique coins on the coin market without drawing attention to yourself? You can't. They had to figure out how to do that, and the only way is to do it legitimately. So they researched the law and figured they had a legal claim to ownership of the gold. (Maybe they didn't know about the 1900 US Mint theft. It wasn't well publicized.) They looked in to taxes and realized half of proceeds would go to the government, and they had to pay taxes on it the same year they found it. That means since they found it last year, it's all due April 15th of this year. So now they are going public to publicize the coins and drive up interest in the auctions that are sure to come. Not much time left. They had to act now.

Or maybe they found the coins ten years ago, and have been slowly unloading them a bit each year, and are now impatient and willing to just pay the taxes to get the lump sum payout.

It's like money laundering, except even harder because these coins are rare.

Can you imagine trying to sell off a famous stolen painting?

The antique coin value has to be well over twice the scrap value for that plan to make monetary sense considering taxes and auction commission.
I would think it would be hard to prove those were the stolen coins since they don't have serial numbers like bills.
I'd keep one of the nicest and put it in a shadow box then scrap the rest, sentimental fool that I am

Ahh! Yet again, reading the actual article in question proves to be immeasurably illuminating.

I think they should only be taxed if they sell them.

From Glatt's last link

Quote:

She quoted a 2013 tax guide in which the IRS stated: “If you find and keep property that does not belong to you that has been lost or abandoned (treasure-trove), it is taxable to you at its fair market value in the first year it is in your undisputed possession.”

If their are taxed, then the government is stating they have "undisputed possession". I read that as the government is not claiming the coins were stolen from the mint and must be returned.

Someone told me the finders are giving very large sums to charity.

You can be sure than any individual with just a casual interest will disburse that money to better ends than our beloved FedGov.

Butcher window display: Public to decide on dead animals

This is how it started...

Quote:

A butcher who stopped displaying dead animals in his window due to complaints they were upsetting children says the public can decide whether the displays should return.

JBS Family Butchers in Sudbury, Suffolk, stopped displaying the carcasses after people threatened to boycott nearby shops.

Some shoppers said the sight of the animals was "disgusting".

The business said it was now asking for people's thoughts on the matter.

Assistant manager Richard Nicholson, 25, said the shop, which is in the Borehamgate shopping centre, had displayed the animals in the window for "years".

Butcher window display: Public to decide on dead animals

...and this is how it ended.

Quote:

A butcher who stopped displays of dead animals in his Suffolk shop window due to complaints is to reinstate them.

JBS Family Butchers in Sudbury stopped showcasing the carcasses of seasonal produce after people threatened to boycott nearby shops.

But butcher John Sawyer, 53, said he had received "overwhelming" support in favour of displaying the produce and it would return at the weekend.

"It's easily avoided if you don't want to see it," he said.

The shop, in the Borehmagate shopping centre, had displayed the dead animals in its window for several years before two letters published in the Suffolk Free Press prompted their removal on Friday.

Sudbury butcher's dead animal window display to return

Yay!
Thanks for the find, Carr.

Yeah, we discussed this face to face while losers were snoozin' and not on GMT.

Pleased to be of service! :thumb:

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 893660)

From Glatt's last link

If their are taxed, then the government is stating they have "undisputed possession". I read that as the government is not claiming the coins were stolen from the mint and must be returned.

Someone told me the finders are giving very large sums to charity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griff (Post 893676)

You can be sure than any individual with just a casual interest will disburse that money to better ends than our beloved FedGov.

I guess the government realized that it would stand to earn more in taxes than the gold's value. I'm sure there is not an ebay user with the handle, fedgov.

Under the "Finders Keepers- Losers Weepers" law...

Why, the tax is on "market value at the time of the find", so they could tax for a portion, or grab it all and sell for market value.
Methinks that would drag out for years in court, though, and the government certainly wouldn't do anything that wasn't in the best interest of the citizen taxpayer.

Citizen? Do we still have that?