What does the law require you to do if you find $3.5 million buried on a beach?

Question

Do you have to report it? At what point would you get to keep it? Would you have to pay taxes on it as 'income'? Would you still get to keep it if there was a possibility that it was drug money and you had nothing to do with the drug dealing parties?

Answer 1

The law would want you to turn it in so they could get their hands on it. But if I found that much money the law would never know about it.

Answer 2

No

When found.

If you reported it.

If it was drug money and you had it, they I am sure would be looking for you.

Answer 3

This situation is classified as a "treasure trove" instance of property law.  The answers to your question vary by state but generally speaking:

1) Yes you need to disclose the fact that you found a treasure.  Depending on how you found it, you may or may not be able to keep it.  If you found it on public land in most American states, you get to keep it.  If you found it in the scope of your employment, you have to relinquish it.  If you found it while working but doing something not demanded by your employment, then generally you keep it.

2) Yes, it's income you need to pay taxes.

3) If it was cash and you felt it was drug money, then it doesn't work as a "treasure trove."  Instead, you follow the same procedure as anyone who finds a purse/wallet/etc.  Notify the police, they notify the public, if the real owner can be found it goes to them.  If the real owner can't be found, then it becomes yours.  

Answer 4

Well, since you would have no idea when it was buried or who's it was, the law states you have to report it to the police.  They will take it and put it into evidence for "x amount" of time.  If it is not claimed in that time (30-90 days usually), then you can keep it.  I would bet the IRS would find out somehow and nail you for taxes..but what the heck, free money is still free money.

Technically if you don't turn it in and the owner finds out, then you could be charged with stealing it.

Answer 5

Each state has its own rules but generally -

1. You must turn it in. Failure to do so is theft.

2. If nobody claims it after a certain time period, you should get to keep it.

3. Yes, it is taxable income.

4. It doesn't matter where it came from but the govt would probably use any excuse (like "drug" money) to keep it for themselves.  

Answer 6

Id say you keep 1.5 mil for you and give the rest. Oops did I forget to mention anything buried(found under the surface of land or sand is the property of the government ! ha ha ha Its the law, that means you get to keep nothing expect being a good citizen and increasing the city's budget meaning more law enforcement officers, resulting in you been safe. At the end it win-win ! LOL Beside if its drug money, its evidence for a case ! and the bills are probably recorded by a narc division or the DEA

Answer 7

Does this question have anything to do with the recent story?  For those of you not familiar...

Man raises suspicion as he swaps buried money for clean cash

By MATT APUZZO and ALICIA A. CALDWELL

The Associated Press

These stacks of burned U.S. currency at the Treasury Department’s Mutilated Currency Division are marked “no value.” But a mystery surrounds some other currency. WASHINGTON | The businessman arrived at the Treasury Department carrying a suitcase stuffed with about $5.2 million.

The bills were decomposing, nearly unrecognizable, and he asked to swap them for a cashier’s check. He said the money came from Mexico.

Money like this normally arrives in an armored truck or insured shipping container after a bank burns or a vault floods. It doesn’t just show up at the visitor’s entrance on a Tuesday morning. But the banking habits of Franz Felhaber had stopped making sense to the government long ago.

For the past few years, authorities say, he and his family have popped in and out of U.S. banks, looking to change about $20 million in buried treasure for clean cash.

The money is always the same — decaying $100 bills from the 1970s and 1980s.

It’s the story that keeps changing:

It was an inheritance. Somebody dug up a tree and there it was. It was found in a suitcase buried in an alfalfa field. A relative found a treasure map.

Felhaber is a customs broker, a middleman.

His company, F.C. Felhaber & Co., is just minutes away from the bridge between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Felhaber says the money is not his. A Mexican relative, Francisco Javier Ramos Saenz-Pardo, merely sought help exchanging money that had been buried for decades, Felhaber says.

“To be very clear on this matter: In the beginning, I was not told what it was,” Felhaber told The Associated Press.

Money petrifies after sitting underground that long, and Felhaber said it looked like a brick of adobe. The Treasury will exchange even badly damaged money, but Felhaber said Saenz-Pardo did not want to handle the process himself.

If the goal were to avoid unwarranted attention, Felhaber went about it all wrong. Rather than making a simple — albeit large — exchange at the Treasury, Felhaber allegedly began trying to exchange smaller amounts at El Paso-area banks, raising suspicion every time.

The first stop was the Federal Reserve Bank in El Paso, where authorities say Felhaber appeared with an uncle, Jose, and an aunt, Esther. In her purse, Esther carried $120,000. She told bank officials there were millions more.

Felhaber was back at it again weeks later, this time at a Bank of America branch. Customs officials say he unsuccessfully tried to persuade a bank vice president to dispatch an armored truck to the Mexican border to pick up millions of dollars.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents questioned Felhaber in October 2005. According to a government summary of that interview, Felhaber said he believed the money was the result of a land deal. The money was buried in a coffin, he said.

In January 2006, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing received a package containing about $136,000 from Jose Carrillo-Valles, Felhaber’s uncle. Felhaber’s business was listed as the return address. The letter explained the money had been stored in a basement for 22 years.

Following the money, investigators interviewed Carrillo-Valles and his wife. Each denied ever sending or receiving the money, according to a government affidavit.

In April 2007, the case moved from being suspicious to becoming a criminal investigation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials called the Justice Department, saying Felhaber had just arrived in person with about $1.2 million.

This April, Felhaber was back at the Treasury, this time with a suitcase containing $5.2 million. Investigators say they have found no import documents filed for this deal, a violation of cash smuggling laws.

Prosecutors moved in. Felhaber’s two Treasury visits gave them probable cause to seize the money — both the $1.2 million and the $5.2 million.

None of the documents filed in federal court accuses Felhaber of being involved in drugs. They leave open the possibility that somebody merely came across a cache of drug money, forgotten or abandoned in the desert.

In the coming weeks, the Justice Department plans to seek forfeiture of the seized $6.4 million. That means Felhaber and his family will have the opportunity to ask for their money back.

If they do, they’ll have to explain where it came from.

Though I do think the story pretty clearly outlines the laws related!