**I have a feeling a lot of people are trying to use NFTs to avoid paying taxes. Will it work, though?**

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQma4fg3mkWESZfbzF7XxqhZR2XoxYPtGbNby6uxRAXkD9T/image.png)

<img src="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/l337m45732/EoeEW138tverNwuADDdsbMtp3fzHkseXn7wqiNTbt7BinpT4HWK3tmJ1ktVpNojPAFy.png" alt="leofinance.io">

# Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT bought for 188 ETH, sold for 0.088 ETH

I know the title was a little click-baity. It was supposed to be. Obviously I'm not going to write an article explaining to you how to evade taxes... Not in a million years. Taxes are a good thing.

Ok, now that the IRS has stopped reading, I'd like to say that this is just an observation. I don't know what actually happened, and I have no way to prove what I assume happened. I've read a lot of things like this lately and they all just really stick out to me as *interesting*. Look, I know if you're flying through typing or doing something like that, you can make a mistake. But that mistake is not gunna cost you $350,000.

So I'll entertain the thought that someone may have *fat fingered* and entered the wrong sale price for their NFT. BAYC NFTs are very highly sought after for some reason, and people pay an insane amount of money for them every day. This particular NFT, [BAYC #7256](https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/7256) was listed and sold for 0.088 ETH in the same day. 

Imagine you're wealthy enough to spend $330,000 or 188 ETH on an NFT... Even if you intend to try to flip it for more than you bought it for, odds are you are going to be extremely careful doing anything with it. You're not gunna go making listings while you're smoking a fatty or drinking. You're probably gunna **quadruple check** any transaction you make with it, whether it be sending to a different wallet or making a listing.

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmeuDNTJ3Tq5u8NyJ3qtbJxoi3pJznKCTphCNCeKJKQ6TV/image.png)

At least that's how I'd treat this monkey JPEG I just spent $330,000 on. That is, unless I was trying to make it ***look like I lost a ton of money***. Why would I want to do this? Well, if you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars with crypto and you have yet to pay your capital gains taxes... You might want a giant loss to offset some of those games to avoid paying those taxes.

I'm no tax guru or anything so I could be completely wrong about this... But say you own $300,000 in capital gains taxes for the year and you don't wanna pay it... You would need losses greater than or equivalent to offset your gains and completely avoid it. Get what I'm saying? 

Person with Wallet A owes $300,000 in capital gains taxes and doesn't want to pay them. Wallet A "accidentally" lists the NFT for an insanely low amount, like 0.088 ETH. Person then buys the NFT from themselves in Wallet A and the NFT is transferred to Wallet B (brand new wallet). Wallet A spent 188 ETH on the NFT, and has now suffered a 187.91 ETH loss based on the purchase price of the NFT.

Now that person still owns their insanely valuable monkey JPEG and also doesn't owe any capital gains taxes. In my mind, this is how it works at least. You'd have to ask a tax expert realistically. Now let's take a look at what happened on the blockchain.

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmXHMZXiYonyqJAv5kXsEVNFmrSKtotVbcM3pE53t1LxLk/image.png)

[Opensea user "onekiller"](https://opensea.io/onekiller) purchased the NFT a month ago and has been listing it for different prices. Listings ranged in price from 145 ETH to 888 ETH over the course of a month. The different listings are then canceled and redone. I just wonder how much gas this guy spent doing all this... Gas fees have been cheaper lately, but still this is a a lot of transactions.

So after a bunch of failed sale listings on the NFT, the listings are canceled, and then he lists for 0.088 WETH. The NFT is almost immediately purchased by [this wallet](https://etherscan.io/address/0x63adc1aa04b23786d7d597abef8c990f305f774e) which is brand new and only has a couple transactions. Because the blockchain doesn't lie, we can do a little bit of blockchain detective work and see that this brand new wallet looks a little suspicious. 

First off, you wouldn't expect someone buying Bored Apes to have this little ETH in their wallet. Nor would you expect it to have the **exact amount paid for the NFT in WETH**. That amount of WETH was obtained by the wallet what seems like just a couple hours before the listing. Hmmmmm..... It's right before the listing and it's the ***exact amount***.

Shortly after the listing, that wallet purchased the NFT and literally only had enough ETH in the wallet to cover some gas fees. Coincidence? I doubt it. Looks like tax evasion to me... So there you have it. If you wanna do it, here's a great example.

I'm not making an accusation, I'm just observing the data the blockchain recorded. What do you think?




<img src="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/l337m45732/EoeEW138tverNwuADDdsbMtp3fzHkseXn7wqiNTbt7BinpT4HWK3tmJ1ktVpNojPAFy.png" alt="leofinance.io">
<center><h2>Thanks for reading! Much love.</h2></center>

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