If you get paid money legally and just… transfer it a bunch through various banking accounts or similar. That is obviously not illegal in any way.
If you get paid money legally and then say, “buy a lot of car washes” at the car wash your cousin owns and then he pays you the money back and you two don’t report that to the IRS, that would be tax fraud (though laws on “gifting” money get pretty vague)
Basically, it’s really hard to somehow illegally “launder” clean money
I think it was an episode of Suits or something similar where a guy was divorcing his wife but wanted to hide certain legal assets but hide it from his wife.
The episode made it sound like he had to launder the money so it looked like, on paper, it didn’t belong to him and it implied that it wasn’t legal but they did it anyway. I can’t remember the details but basically why I asked.
If it’s legal money, then you aren’t laundering it. Transferring money you’ve obtained legally is just transferring money. It’s only money laundering by definition if the money was illegally gained.
Slightly related question: is money laundering, in itself, illegal?
Like, say I have $1000 from my regular W-2 job, taxes paid.
I launder it through a bunch of accounts. Is that illegal?
Or is it the mixing with dirty funds that makes it illegal?
Not sure you can “launder” clean money.
If you get paid money legally and just… transfer it a bunch through various banking accounts or similar. That is obviously not illegal in any way.
If you get paid money legally and then say, “buy a lot of car washes” at the car wash your cousin owns and then he pays you the money back and you two don’t report that to the IRS, that would be tax fraud (though laws on “gifting” money get pretty vague)
Basically, it’s really hard to somehow illegally “launder” clean money
I think it was an episode of Suits or something similar where a guy was divorcing his wife but wanted to hide certain legal assets but hide it from his wife.
The episode made it sound like he had to launder the money so it looked like, on paper, it didn’t belong to him and it implied that it wasn’t legal but they did it anyway. I can’t remember the details but basically why I asked.
If it’s legal money, then you aren’t laundering it. Transferring money you’ve obtained legally is just transferring money. It’s only money laundering by definition if the money was illegally gained.