Hi, Thought this may be an interesting article. I am always a strong advocate on people working hard to better and advance their quality of life but guess the media loves stories like this to make foreign investors/ corrupt foreign money be the favour of the month. Chinese police chief Wang Jun Ren jailed for buying Australian real estate with corrupt money Wonder if the fellow is going to be executed for his crimes.
It's always very difficult to know the truth in these countries where corruption underlies the entire system all the way to the top. My first thought is that since pretty much everyone in power there is corrupt, why is he being singled out? There is a good chance someone else wanted to take over his corruption for their own benefit or else just try and get his corrupt money into their own pocket. There is also a good chance that he is just the last one standing in a game of musical chairs as the others hang out someone else as a way for them to get a bigger piece of the corruption pie for themselves. I don't consider him being caught as "justice" because that would mean he is paying the price for doing something wrong. He is most likely paying the price because another corrupt person wants his corrupt money. Of course if he does pay for it, then it is mostly by chance that occasionally two wrongs do make a right. All you can really do is appreciate that you was born in Australia.
Toothless tigers. My friend's best friend from Ghangzhou almost did the Julius Cesar thing where he came, he saw and bought 4 houses in cash.
Now that the FIRB has help from the ATO, they will be far from toothless. However I do think they have their work cut out for them. but with the ATO's help, its too easy to find out who's flouting FIRB laws. Just have to search from the data base a list of all non new property owners and check all their visa statuses at time of purchase --> one huge list --> enforcement notices. Its a big gold mine for the government, from the stamp duty they get and all the fines they can issue. If even TA's friends are involved, we can be pretty sure that there's more where that came from.. No surprise that many properties in Melbourne and Sydney are bought with corrupt money of suspect origin. China has probably been the main source, but let's not forget other asian countries where corruption is rife (Malaysia/Philippines/Thailand/Vietnam/Indonesia), and other big nations like US/Canada and India.
Can't wait until some of the juicy stories that may come out of this. I believe in fair play and as a proud Australian (Asian ethnicity) our country is not a haven for people! Btw, $1.04 trillion dollars has come out of China
I mentioned this a long time ago on the forums. There is so much corrupt money flowing into Australia, its not even funny. And I can say this by just casually watching the border protection TV show. The number of people caught travelling with over AUD 40k of undeclared cash does not even surprise me. And this is just the Chinese. There is so much more coming in from the rest of Asia. Sydney will keep booming for a while, from my guestimate.
Yes, this is BRICS money (and nearby countries). If it were not for that money, we would all be in near recessionary ecomically. I would be very grateful that that money is coming here and not another country. If it were not for that money, you could cut Sydney and Mel by at least a third and throw it in the bin.
Naive question: whenever I have bought I've had to hand over ID / passport to the conveyancer to prove identity. Are these checks not completed by the purchasers' legal rep? Even if bought through a company is there no requirement to declare ultimate shareholders? Should there be?
in the past it seems despite the law, FIRB wasn't enforcing it, hence lawyers/conveyancers didnt really care or bother checking. I think with the new ATO involvement, the conveyancers will be checking as they will fear losing their licences. I think even some REAs are checking as well. There is also a clearance certificate or something needed from the ATO if you are selling property over 2million now. @jins13 : yeah the billions pouring out contributed to much of the depreciation of the YUAN last year. But Chairman Xi seems to have successfully put a stop to that. Unfortunately with nowhere to go, the great ball of chinese money is again pushing up property prices in china, despite property curbs.
