Real estate is a good industry with a promising reward in terms of financial freedom. But it can't be denied that this good business is also accompanied by negative transactions like "dirty" money.
ABC Net Au has recently reported this sensitive issue. It says that "the Federal government is coming under mounting international pressure to strengthen its laws against money laundering through real estate."
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global organization that keeps an eye on the proceeds of the crime, has published an article saying that the real estate in Australia is an attractive destination for "dirty money." "I think it [Australian real estate] is a softer target," PwC's forensic services division officer Malcolm Shackell stated.
"Certainly when you look at some of our trading partners - Singapore, the US and the UK - the real estate industry is captured under the AML [anti-money laundering] regulations in those jurisdictions," Shackell added.
FATF's April report has revealed that there is a suspected large amount that is to "be laundered out from China into the Australian real estate market." The major concern in relation to this revealed information is that "Australia has not brought real estate agents within the AML/CTF [counter-terrorism finance] regime."
That being said, it is obviously not a pleasant sight to appear as "dithering or a laggard" in reference to money laundering at the given environment. The danger in this situation is that the 'dirty money" would definitely be laundered through Australian real estate, then would be sent back to its source.
On a similar note, Macrobusiness also reports the urgency that some organizations have put on the Australian government to clean up the money laundering problem that is being tied to real estate transaction.
With this pressing international concern, the agents including brokers and developers are worried that they would be dealing with "an onerous compliance burden if they are brought within the anti-money laundering regime." Yet the headache doesn't end with the real estate practitioners. The Austrac, Australian money laundering regulator, would be dealing a lot since the organization has at present 14,000 businesses to monitor. This would triple their monitoring work soon.
So while the government is up in cleaning the "dirty money" in the real estate, Malcolm Shackell commented that there are two issues that need to address in the process. These are the issues around resourcing and around the compliance burden as well.
