Chapter 587 The Cash Auction (2/2)
When he woke he received a call from Hans. ”Hey bro, how's it going in the national park?”
”Got great gains—do you want to come get some?”
”No,” Hans said, ”I spent some time as a gem hunter once. No sign of even a piece of sh*t after two months. I swore that I would never do such a stupid job again.”
Li Du laughed loudly. ”You just haven't got the know-how.”
Hans countered, ”Did Big Quinn and Godzilla find anything? What did they find?”
Mr. Li became quiet—the two poor guys also hadn't managed to find sh*t.
Noting his silence, Hans guffawed.
”Stop laughing, why did you call?” Li Du asked in frustration. ”It can't be just to ask about my gains.”
”Right,” Hans said. ”Was so busy talking crap with you that I almost forgot the main reason I called.”
”F*ck!”
Hans laughed, ”Don't cuss at me, you should praise me instead. The first thing was that I've sold all our sports equipment. Wanna know how much I got for them?”
Li Du pretended to think hard before saying, ”A million?”
Silence came from Hans's end of the line.
It was Li Du's turn to laugh. ”I'm just kidding. How is it, did we get a good price? What else can you tell me? Alright, I was joking about that million but we should have at least gotten 200 grand?”
After a while, Hans's listless voice could be heard. ”I was quiet because I was irritated by you. Irritated because you underestimated my ability.”
Li Du was shocked. ”What?”
Hans said, ”The whole set of autographed footballs, I sold them for 240,000 dollars!”
Li Du was dumbfounded by his statement. ”You must be kidding me!”
”Come back and see the account statements for yourself. This time we'll have to pay quite a bit of taxes. The sales of all the sporting goods totaled at 1.66 million dollars! ”
Upon hearing this price, Li Du gasped, ”1.66 million dollars? You sure it's USD and not Thai baht or Zimbawee currency?”
”I'll show you the books when you get back. The second thing I am calling about is the news I just got. There's going to be a cash auction in Las Vegas in two days. Wanna try it out?”
Li Du had yet to recover from the moment he'd found out that a pile of balls and a few machines had sold for the astounding price of 1.66 million dollars. Upon hearing Hans's question, he said casually, ”As long as there is a chance to make money, we'll go.”
”Of course! Of course there's a chance to make money. Every time there's a cash auction, someone makes money.”
Li Du suddenly reacted and asked, ”Cash auction? What does it mean? Only cash can be used? Why would it be a guaranteed chance at profits?”
Hans explained, ”Yes, only cash can be used. To participate in the auction, we gotta bring enough cash. Why is it a guaranteed chance at profits? Because cash auctions usually see many storage units being auctioned off, and so the chances of making profits are higher!”
Cash auctions were a type of large-scale storage auctions; cash was the preferred mode of payment so that the seller could evade taxes.
With the proliferation of online transactions, it was even easier for the Internal Revenue Service to check on accounts. Many auctions used online banking to carry out transactions; all the IRS needed to do was check the online statements with the banks.
Cash transactions meant that there was the chance to falsify accounts and evade taxes. Large-scale storage auctions would see large sums of money being transferred. Tax evasion could help to save a significant amount of money.