What laws are there regarding finding large amounts of money?
Hypothetically if I found $25,000 what legal responsibilities would I have? Do I have to turn it into the police or make a resonable effort to find the owner?
And assuming that the owner never steps forward to claim the money and it isn’t seized by the police, what legally would I have to do regarding the IRS? I don’t remember seeing a spot on the form for reporting found money.
I searched the achives for “finding money” and didn’t see anything related to this.
As with all legal questions, this depends on where you are. In Germany (and I think it’s more or less similar in other countries), you have to notify the owner unless the value is less than ten euros. If you don’t know the identity of the owner, you have to notify the appropriate authorities (in fact, every town has a municipal lost and found office). If nobody claims the things you found within six months, it becomes property of the finder; if the owner shows up to claim it, the finder can demand a reward proportional to the value.
I don’t think it would be necessary to report it on your income tax form. Income is money coming in regularly, which is why gambling winnings aren’t subject to income tax, either.
The regulations to the internal revenue code describe found money as “Treasure Trove” and include it in the taxpayer’s gross income.
There is a fairly famous case taught in the tax sections of law school dealing with a family that buys a used piano in 1957 for $15 then finds $4,467 in old currency hidden in the instrument a few years later (1964). The court decided the amount is taxable as ordinary income in 1964. The point of the case was to determine the correct year for taxation. The taxability of the found money was not really in dispute. See Cesarini, Ermenegildo v. U.S., (1970, CA6).
I’m kind of tempted to start a new post for this, but…
Say I buy some art, a legitimate $10,000 U.S. bill, framed and not meant to be spent. Got a good deal on eBay – $25. So, is this a capital gain when I sell it? Do I have $10,000 in income (less $25?)? Or is it just a purchase until such time I remove the bill in an attempt to spend it?
I imagine you would be able to get away with turning the money in for 6 weeks and then claiming it on your taxes if it were say $500-10,000. But what if it were five or ten times that amount?
Hypothetically lets say that I call up my the IRS and the FBI and let them know that I just found $100,000.00 in a trash can in the alley outside my house. My gut instinct is telling me that I don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of being able to keep the money even if no one claims it after six weeks.
While I’m sure that the Government shouldn’t have the right to just take the money and run, I imagine if you could just declare that you’ve found some money and keep it there would be an awful lot of organized criminals “finding” money all over the place. That way the money’s clean and they wouldn’t have to worry about that pesky tax evasion jail sentence.
Interestingly enough, there is an artist who makes his own illegitimate bills. They look vaguely similar to currency, but they’re clearly not. He uses them to pay for his groceries, restaurant bills, etc. Some people accept it (obviously, they’re not required to at all) at face value, and even give him real change!
So what if you found one of his fake $10,000 bills in the local laundromat (let’s say he left it in his pants and it fell out into the washing machine). If you were able to convince a bank that you wanted to open an account with it, and the bank manager happened to be an art collector, and agreed to do it (leaving off the question of how much trouble he would get into with his superiors), would that be income?
Or because this really isn’t art :wally , would this just be a non-taxable gift from the bank manager? :dubious: