If you transfer 1m via kraken to Mercury in the name of the Delaware llc, Mercury is not going to ask how this crypto was obtained?
Yes pretty much this. I doubt the Delaware llc path here is going to work.
I have consulted with some local law folks on Option 6. The important points (nothing new really, just the obvious things):
- One is already in problems with tax from not declaring trades when they happened over the years, or declaring profit from sales the year they happened, declaring staking profits, declaring interest from lending.
- One can use a lawyer to legally try and declare the funds in one's current country, apologize and come to some deal with the tax office, but with penalties it's likely going to be over 50% in tax. Also, there is a risk of owing more than 100% if trades caused too much tax burden.
- One runs the risk of criminal prosecution (and jail) when trying to declare it (even when paying penalties) due to the amount of money involved. Declaring only part of it (the part with the clearer history of where it came from) means the rest can never be declared again as it would show that one had willingly withheld information at the previous declaration.
- Moving countries doesn't matter, one still owes tax to the country one was in when trades happened.
- Moving countries to establish a different tax residency and surrendering residence here can be seen as fleeing from tax duties/crime which makes it a worse crime.
Now the not purely advisable stuff (from a lawyer standpoint):
- Crimes expire after 7 years. One could theoretically do nothing for 7 years. (A bit more complicated than that)
- Realistically, one's current country does not know about one's holdings, so moving countries can be an option unless someone reports them. One should make sure not to use CEXes or wallets that can be traced back to them from their current country (don't use local exchanges).
- One could continue moving small amounts and fly under the radar.
- One could incorporate abroad somewhere and have the corp own the funds, however that does not change the tax liability for the past, and obviously would need to get the money into the corp in the first place (like have the corp sell something). But it's advisable to get a corp anyway for all future trades to not incur more tax debt.
- One could (as someone suggested) do something like creating NFTs and have them get bought, then declare as normal revenue. This needs to be solid, as audits happen quite often on small businesses here.
- One could potentially have part of the money get gifted to them, and declare gift tax.
The lawyer advised that someone in this situation better calculate through everything and have them discuss with the tax office without revealing PII to get a feeling of what one would owe.
Realistically, even without having done anything shady, with the risk involved of even trying to properly declare it, moving country, waiting 7 years, offshore corp, or trying to slowly declare parts of it through small sales of things like NFTs could start to sound more attractive to someone in this situation. It's advisable to consult with other lawyers.
Keep them ideas coming, there are some good comments in this thread!