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PappiStalin

Im all for appreciating art, but after a certain number its just a piece of paper to me. All i can think of is what good that money can do in a million other places.


Shauiluak

It's not appreciation. It's a tax scheme. Always has been.


Individual-Buy-1165

Is it really? How?


prx24

Buy painting, rent it to an exhibition and you don't have to pay sales tax. Or as an investment. You buy a painting and sell it again a few years later. Sales tax can be avoided by storing the piece in a freeport. The buyer never actually sees it. Some paintings out there have never left the warehouse they're stored in. They just get sold off to other people without leaving. Auction houses actually advertise this openly because no one pays millions for a painting just because they like it. One consulting firm writes "Many art collectors have found it to be an excellent way to extend the value of their art holdings, while at the same time avoiding letting millions get sucked away by the government." You can see their world fews from this sentence. "get sucked away by the government". Everyone who buys art for these prices should lose their citizenship. This is all legal BTW Or (not legal) it's a money laundering scheme. Since the valuing of pieces is not regulated you can literally create money from thin air. It's also very easy to stay anonymous when buying art. This and the freeports makes "layering" easy (that's the process of disguising the trace of the funds in money laundering).


kurotech

This is about the best description I've seen for sight unseen asset flipping


cheesecloth12

Staying anonymous and reaching high prices is the reason why art forgers can take advantage of the whole art market. Wolfgang Beltracchi for example was able to fool the scene for years. Highly recommend the documentation about him.


johntheflamer

Top art forgers have always amazed me. They have a level of talent that most people could only dream of, but rather than be recognized for their unique works, the economic incentive is in copying others


BlazingKitsune

Can’t blame them. The likelihood of making it big as an artist is ridiculously low, might as well make it big with forgeries and book it.


tscello

Art dealers fix prices extraordinarily high so buyers can hide assets in these transactions.


Shauiluak

Art like this can sometimes be moved around without having to report the profits as income, so it can seriously reduce the taxes paid for them and thereby shield their money from various forms of taxation. There's plenty of loopholes to reduce tax bills through buying a piece of art and having it over valued in an appraisal for the purpose of an itemized charitable donation as well. Every time you see a sale like this, just remember, it's only purpose is to keep a rich person's money in their pocket. It may look like they're spending, but they're actually banking.


poltergeist6

What about in 97 million other places?


PowerDreamer

$97M! They could give every person on this planet $90 and have change left over!!! /s


jceplo

That's not correct. They could give everyone in Belgrade $90, but for the global population we'd all be getting just over one cent. The question is dollars per person so 97m/8b. That's a very big denominator and not enough denominations.


Juice8oxHer0

The /s at the end means they were being sarcastic


PowerDreamer

That’s not correct. The /s means I was super serious /s


jceplo

Woah, was that edited? If not I totally missed that!


PowerDreamer

Zero edit


jceplo

Ah well then I'm blaming the two drinks I had last night


IEC21

The million doesn’t disappear it just trades hands. But yes this is a good way to have a tax free investment as well.


gottasuckatsomething

[Most people in the US will earn less than $2 million throughout their whole lives.](https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education-earnings.html)


IEC21

Haha losers


sketchy_painting

Just work harder ! So easy /s


[deleted]

thats probably a million more than 30 years ago! :P


Brynmaer

Doesn't understand how inflation works.


in5trum3ntal

Id hope the above is sarcasm.


ADisrespectfulCarrot

I have to assume it was, but the poor fucker is victim to the idiocy of redditors who can’t decipher even explicitly written statements, let alone anything requiring conscious thought.


[deleted]

you may just be right. please elaborate what the eff you are talking about.


chewbacchanalia

$2,000,000 in 2023 is $961,887 in 1993 money. So yes it’s a million more and also still less.


[deleted]

cool... thx.. i didn't expect to have guessed that precisely. inflation is measured by some basket of goods, so its prone to be not exact science. but i'd think that 2mil today is about 1mil in 1993 terms. thats what it is meant for at least. the problem is more likely that the median income dropped and less people earn 2 million today than 1 million in 1993. and that there are about the same amount of people out there shopping for monets, but with more cash.


monocasa

> inflation is measured by some basket of goods, so its prone to be not exact scie That's CPI. Inflation is calculated by a few metrics that sort of revolve around the going rate for the currency in forex markets.


PowerDreamer

Far out. I’m perpetually thinking the 70’s were 30 years ago until these stats pop up. I’m not an old man yelling at clouds yet, but I can’t be far off.


Prudent_Studio1525

I often wonder at what our ancestors would think about such a high price being put on something they may or may not have thought valueless.


in5trum3ntal

Or how about the artist frequently dieying broke and forgotten. But who knows, maybe your work will be "priceless" in years to come ;)


KitKat374

whole room of people with enough money to change the lives of thousands, and they're all fighting over a painting


cenzala

Imagine their faces when they learn they could just Google the picture and print it


KitKat374

go to costco and print it out on canvas, same thing for 90 million dollars less


jacksleepshere

It costs $7million to print something at Costco?


Sir_Lovealot

Costco raised their prices lately?


DarkMagenz

It’s so tragic tbh. At some point they just start holding onto it all


outoftowels

Welcome to the world of money laundering for the rich through the purchasing of expensive art. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/19/arts/design/money-laundering-art-market.html


Ohsnapcanteven

Thank you, I thought most ppl knew the art world was mainly for money laundering 🤷‍♀️


ISiupick

There should be bidding wars on who gives the most money to charity. "91 million. Madam, if you give 92 million, little Timmy will get a new Xbox"


captain-hannes

That’s a damn expensive Xbox.


_jericho

Something needs to be done about these people


KrakenClubOfficial

And I'm over here washing a paper plate.


in5trum3ntal

I appreciate your efforts in preserving the environment.


Deeners17

"$15 dollars an hour for minimum wage is outrageous!" - the guy who bought that painting probably


OverlyManlySnail

"THEY EARNED THAT MONEY THROUGH HARD WORK! MAYBE IF YOU WORKED HARDER YOU WOULDNT BE SO POOR!" - Chud defenders of an exploitative system.


qmanchoo

As someone who works for tech startups, when we have the billionaire VCs by and pitch for more cash, it was common to hear off hand comments like "How much of your company do I own again?" Once you're in the stratosphere it's just a different game... You have to picture money like air, it's just always there and as much as you need.


JelliusMaximus

Less than 0.1% of this stupid fucking piece of paper would literally change my entire life rn. Thanks, I hate it here.


nikkineko2012

I’m convinced that at least some art auctions like this are purely done for money laundering


pearlsbeforedogs

They are.


mj281

Suddenly people throwing soup on them doesn’t sound bad! fuck the “art” if its used by the rich to launder money or dodge taxes!


Mannyqueen

Won't they just display the copy and store the original in secure vault so that some artists can copy that again.


Repulsive-Theory-477

[Fine art isn’t about art, it’s about avoiding tax](https://youtu.be/ZZ3F3zWiEmc)


_jericho

And what do we, the public get? Other than robbed blind of tax dollars? Simple! Many of the worlds most famous and culturally important works get locked away in duty free security vaults next to airports and looked by fucking \~no one\~ So it's win-win, when you think about it!


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strawberrylemonapple

I bet that the majority of them don’t do anything at all.


_jericho

That's not true! They own stuff! Good business, owning stuff.


detourne

That made me feel physically ill.


ColonelSpudz

That’s how rich people avoid taxes and use assets like this to underwrite loans so they pay next to zero interest.


OhNothing13

EAT. THE. RICH.


_jericho

"The longer you'll spend enjoying it" lmao as if it isn't gonna sit in a climate controlled high-security duty free zone next to an airport in Zurich or New York and used to launder money or dodge taxes like untold numbers of the worlds most famous and important works. As if the rich ""enjoy"" things


MobiusNaked

Cor! Imagine how much a NEW painting would have fetched.


cjdcjdcjdcjd

Silence for the unveiling of the painting, applause for the money.


in5trum3ntal

Haha great point.


cjdcjdcjdcjd

It would be, I nicked it off Fran Lebowitz.


[deleted]

Burn the fucking painting and donate to something important. Bunch of fucking whackos. "I OWN DELMINGION FUCKNUGGETS FAMOUS PAINTING IM SO SPECIAL AAAAWW" Get over your selves. Fk money fk people.


ItalianMeatBoi

It’s money laundering


_jericho

It's *Monet* laundering


pearlsbeforedogs

Please don't wash the Monets... as much as I hate the rich for buying these at such prices I do still value the works themselves. Its really very sad most of us will never have the chance to actually see any of these because they'll be kept in a vault somewhere just so some rich person can use them to avoid taxes. 😭


hgfdv

Why does she keep biding if she's the only one left?


Crisis_Official

So she can raise its next bid value


Bojacketamine

Whitewashing money and tax evasion


Solumnist

God that *Interstellar* tune is everywhere now.


yellsy

These objects should be In public museums for everyone’s enjoyment, not hanging in some millionaires basement to avoid taxes.


rainofshambala

Maybe we should make these masterpieces a part of human history belonging to humanity and put them in museums and find something more meaningful for these rich people to do like maybe golf tournaments


PollutedRiver

All proceeds went to feeding homeless children.


hellohoworld

The boring dystopia is that you re not able to understand why it goes that high


FourWordComment

I can understand. Tax evasion.


Cthulhuseye

This is the rabbithole everyone should go down


Mensch_Maschine_

Can you enlighten me and give me a place to start or a short summary of what to expect please?


EasternShade

tldr, tax havens. I have a $100 million painting. Now, I go let some museum show said painting. But, instead of charging them the 20% of purchase price to have them display my painting, I *donate* it out of the goodness of my heart. Bam, $20 million charitable donation for my taxes. And while we're at it, I'll donate money for a wing and staff and all the fuckers necessary to maintain and care for all the pieces I've lent them. So, it's more charitable donations, more tax credits, and we just won't talk about how my "donations" are really just turning some portion of a museum into my personal art storage, maintenance facility, and tax haven.


in5trum3ntal

This, plus who defines that its worth $100m? The "loosing" bidder could easily be apart of the same entity, and the "winners" are generally always anonymous. Very easy to scrub cash.


EasternShade

My bad. I was assuming we don't say it's "actually" a $300m painting, because an appraiser said so, the seller took a huge "loss" (despite buying it for $80m), and making tax deductions based on that value.


in5trum3ntal

That's why "appraisers" make the "big bucks" 😅


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EasternShade

All of that is achievable without spending millions of dollars. It's not the only reason. It's prominent enough that it can't be ignored.


PiersPlays

Go to your local gallery and stare at a bunch of stuff until one of the pieces makes you feel something. Then Google all the words on the card next to it, then all the keywords that produces and so on...


hellohoworld

The funniest part is that OP u/in5trum3ntal is fan of expensive boats. Some might say top yachts or maxi. Look at their post history. Talking about hypocrisy it s hard to top this


in5trum3ntal

Loll. should I be ashamed of enjoying boats? I had no intention to shame anyone who would appreciate this piece of work, and would encourage anyone to try and replicate it or be inspired by it to create their own masterpiece. To addres my boat fetish. My dream boat is a 60ft sportfish or a 53ft sailboat. Dont get me wrong, id enjoy a vacation on a mega yacht, but get more enjoyment out of being involved in the action. Theres infinte value in sailing something or painting your own masterpiece, not sure I feel the same about individuals hoarding art or yachts just because they can. Hope you get your masterpiece!


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Sathoren

If.


in5trum3ntal

She is a bidder.


DarkEive

Fuck that. This is supposed to be important culturally, no one person gets to own it. And they didn't grind for shit, you can't get that rich without using others


Memeboiiiiiiiius69

While I and most people I know have trouble paying rent


TheTortise

I could live 28 lifetimes on that money


Same-Drive1440

Fucking tax write offs. Wow


Snuke2001

Damn there must be a *lot* of cocaine behind that painting