Australia To Ban Cash Purchases Over $10,000 (theguardian.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader skegg writes: Last night was federal budget night in Australia, and one of the announcements means Australians will face a crackdown on cash-in-hand payments in an attempt by the government to reduce money laundering and tax evasion. The government has turned its attention to the "black economy" in an attempt to raise billions of extra dollars and intends to limit cash payments for purchase goods and services to $10,000.
The financial services minister argues that currently the status quo "gives some businesses an unfair competitive advantage."

Comments

Simple solution:

[Alain Williams]

Transaction 1: $10,000 buy the car wheels and chassis; Transaction 2: $10,000 buy the engine; Transaction 3: $10,000 buy the rest of the car.

Re:Simple solution:

[bobbied]

I'd bet it's already happening.

Re:Simple solution:

[Jeremi]

Transaction 1: $10,000 buy the car wheels and chassis; Transaction 2: $10,000 buy the engine; Transaction 3: $10,000 buy the rest of the car.

Yeah, they know about that trick; it's illegal too.

Re:Simple solution:

[Ichijo]

That reminds me of an episode of M*A*S*H.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, criminals are known for their strict adherence to the law.

Money laundering and tax evasion laws just need to be enforced. Adding more laws when you are already slacking is just an excuse for more slacking. This doesn't help it just punishes normal people. The criminals have their own ways and already operate outside the law.

Re:Simple solution:

[Rick Schumann]

From TFA:

Transactions with financial institutions or consumer to consumer non-business transactions will not be affected.

..and if you were going to a car dealership to purchase a new vehicle outright (no financing) you'd be nuts to walk around with $30-40-50k (or more) in a suitcase. I can't imagine anyone would even accept that much cash. You'd get a certified check (or equiv. for Australia) to pay them with -- and they'd verify it with the bank before giving you the keys.

Really I see what you were concerned about: Australia comes off as rather authoritarian in the extreme.

Re: Simple solution:

[Luckyo]

If you're willing to become a criminal, you're already out of the scope of this policy. Instead you're a client of the justice system and then penal one.

Re: Simple solution:

[DontBeAMoran]

How the hell do you evade taxes anyway? Do you wait until they're catching up to you on the highway and you suddenly veer off the next exit?

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Transactions with financial institutions or consumer to consumer non-business transactions will not be affected.

..and if you were going to a car dealership to purchase a new vehicle outright (no financing) you'd be nuts to walk around with $30-40-50k (or more) in a suitcase. I can't imagine anyone would even accept that much cash. You'd get a certified check (or equiv. for Australia) to pay them with -- and they'd verify it with the bank before giving you the keys.

Really I see what you were concerned about: Australia comes off as rather authoritarian in the extreme.

I live in Australia.
All my cars have always been paid outright, never financed.
Recently I walked into a motorcycle dealership and bought a $25k AUD bike with cash.
No problem with it being accepted and no problem walking around with that cash in my pocket.

Re: Simple solution:

[rmdingler]

How the hell do you evade taxes anyway? Do you wait until they're catching up to you on the highway and you suddenly veer off the next exit?

Not the next exit... the next-next exit.

Once evasion is suspected, they're looking for you to assume departed status as soon as possible. You have to like the Kansas City Shuffle at a time like this.

Re:Simple solution:

[Zaelath]

Suitcase? $40k is a 2 inch stack, you'd keep that in your front jeans pocket where it's hard to steal, why would you carry it around in something a bag snatcher might go for?

Bank cheques are $10, and don't require a call to the bank to confirm, and hell they probably wouldn't. (source worked in one for 8 years; never got that call, never would have guaranteed anything over the phone since they have to be presented to be honoured.)

Last car I bought from a dealer for that kinda money I just made a direct bank transfer anyway, cost nothing and was faster.

Re:Simple solution:

[scdeimos]

I was just thinking the same thing. Only a couple of months ago I dropped $90K cash on a new car.

The government needs to decide whether cash is still a legal currency or not and then either stop trying to fuck with it or completely eliminate it from the economy.

Re:Simple solution:

[countach]

Your local Lamborghini dealer is probably not going to get involved in that. What the criminals will do is find some homeless person, set them up with a bank account, and work through them.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I reported you to the FBI!

Re: Simple solution:

[Daemonik]

How the hell do you evade taxes anyway?

If you're running a corporation you create an office in a country, typically a tropical island, with a government that allows loose, anonymous banking laws. Then, despite 99.9999999% of your corporation and it's operations being in a completely different country you claim that ALL of your profits were made in that tiny little offshore office. Then you pay for Congressmen or Senators to do their best to destroy the tax agency while you laugh and laugh.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they are closing the gates to the barn before the animals (capital flight) tries to make a break when the bubbles collapse!

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

worked as a bodyguard / private security for a decade.

the number of people who pay cash (in america) for houses, cars, big ticket furniture and jewelry? would probably Stun you.

I've walked down a sidewalk with a backpack containing 1.2 million dollars US. it weighs surprisingly little. maybe 25-30lb

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens in a hyperinflation scenario?
Let's say a loaf of bread costs $5000.

Re:Simple solution:

[heretic108]

Transaction 1: Buyer's Westpac account to Seller's Commonwealth Bank account

Transaction 2: Buyer's Father's ANZ account to Seller's wife's NAB account

...etc

Re:Simple solution:

[Tyrannosaur]

Oh they have done that. How do you remove cash from an economy? You make it inconvenient to use for large purchases, then small purchases. You make digital transactions the de facto standard. Pretty soon it is hard to find anywhere to use your cash. At this point is when they deal the final blow and get rid of cash completely.

Re:Simple solution:

[johnsnails]

We already use this to keep under the $20,000 instant asset write off. Ask the car company to sell the chairs in the work van separately. By 'we' I mean Australians in general.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

You handed over $90k in coins/notes? Why not cut a bank cheque?

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no such thing as money laundering, its a fake crime that anyone can be accused of with no objective proof. When Apple violates the Moss-Magnuson Act by requiring people to get their device serviced at an Authorized Apple Dealer, and they deposit the check, are they guilty of money laundering? How about the guy that purchased marijuana? Or the guy that knowingly over-charged a customer? Or the guy that took the extra deduction he shouldn't have? Or the woman who cut the tag off the matress and sold it? Or the guy who sped on his way to work? You can, if you are motivated to do so, make some connection to money laundering from just about anyone. Selective enforcement is a corrupt government's best friend. "Money Laundering" is selective enforcement favorite tool.

Re: Simple solution:

[CoolDiscoRex]

You're supposed to excitedly hand your money over while shouting "thank you for allowing me to serve you! take what you want!". Anything less is tax evasion.

Re: Simple solution:

[CoolDiscoRex]

It will be illegal inside of 20 years in the USA. The frog is still on 'simmer' right now.

Re:Simple solution:

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

America sure is different than the rest of the world. In most developed places, if you even had 90,000 dollars cash on your person or in your house, it would be assumed to come from illegal means.

Hell i can't even take more than $2000 dollars out of the ATM per day.

rich people problems... Austrailia has a big problem with housing speculators, hot asian money, etc. So thats more likely the reason for this decision. Who the hell walks around with 90,000 dollars... where would you even get that much cash? If you are super rich can you just walk into the bank and say "give me a $100k in 20s, here's a suitcase" ??? man i simply cannot picture this world you live in... not sure if its because i'm super poor or not american or what this time.

Re:Simple solution:

[Peter P Peters]

Yeah, they know about that trick; it's illegal too.

That's the thing with policy makers. Most of them are really smart and whatever you can think of, they have already thought of. Once in a while there are unintentional loopholes that even smarter people exploit and this makes the media, but most of the time, it's all well thought out stuff.

Re: Simple solution:

[Peter P Peters]

If you're willing to become a criminal, you're already out of the scope of this policy. Instead you're a client of the justice system and then penal one.

As we all learned with Al Capone, criminals can be difficult to charge with regular offences. Tax offences are almost impossible to get away with, so this policy is simply making fish easier to catch.

Re:Simple solution:

[Peter P Peters]

You'd get a certified check (or equiv. for Australia) to pay them with.

Check? What is this 1987? Australia has had electronic banking for decades making the US banking system and your checks seem like the Flintstones.

Re:Simple solution:

[Peter P Peters]

The government needs to decide whether cash is still a legal currency or not and then either stop trying to fuck with it or completely eliminate it from the economy.

Why does it have to be only two options? I find using cash for small things and electronic for large to be quite a feasible option. The majority of people with large ($10k) wads of cash are drug dealers so I'm fine with it.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens is things work out pretty good for the new world order.

Re: Simple solution:

[Reverend Green]

No. Capital controls inconvenience the nobility. That's not going to happen.

The point of a cashless economy is greater control and oppression of commoners. There's no need to look deeper for an answer - it's right there.

Totalitarian Financialism is the goal. Slow creeping tyranny is the technique to get us there.

Re:Simple solution:

[jezwel]

Tap and Go is the convenience factor for small transactions, under $100. You can transact up to your limit ($1-2k) by adding your PIN number. That takes care of the vast majority of transactions.

Recently between bank bank transactions have started to go live, so you're no longer waiting overnight or a few days for them to complete.

There's now little reason to carry cash except for a few areas that don't take cards.

With these dwindling, less and less people are carrying cash, so it will eventually become too costly to maintain. That's still a while away yet, but could be here in the next decade or so.

Re: Simple solution:

[CoolDiscoRex]

Hear hear! I also support taking rights away from people that arent me. Peope that aren't me, aren't me, and therefore they are almost certainly doing things that I don't do. All people who do what I don't do are bad, or at least I presume as much because nothing happens to me if I'm wrong.

Re: Simple solution:

[zaphirplane]

Or murder, also money laundering;)

Re: Simple solution:

[zaphirplane]

Cause everyone is excited at the 1,2,3,4 % fee

Re: Simple solution:

[zaphirplane]

Good point please tell us how you Aquire many 10,000 and spend many 10,000 in cash

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

All fish, large and small, not just the criminal fish. This sort of law is incapable of discerning criminality.

Random real world example: Mom+pop store puts weekly revenue in the bank. Bank gets ornery when they make more than $10k/week, because "suspicious transaction reporting" paperwork. Mom+pop store doesn't know why, but obliges bank by splitting deposits. Gov't agent swoops in, "structuring", and liberates mom+pop from their hard-earned, prosecuting them besides for money laundring and mail fraud. Just one example.

Even if they drop the case --but curiously neglect to give back the money-- that's already easily enough to destroy years of hard honest work. Being a law-abiding citizen makes you much more vulnerable to that sort of thing, since it's so much harder to recover from. Even if you have "nothing to hide". It makes one wish to sit on a large stash of ill-gotten loot to make the pain go away.

It illustrates the problem: The government pretends to be able to discern whose money stinks worse.

Re: Simple solution:

[Hognoxious]

Money laundering is taking proceeds of crime and funnelling them through an otherwise legitimate business in order to disguise their origin.

That's everywhere except the US.

There it's become a thing that they just tag onto other offences to get a higher sentence and/or pressure the defendant into a plea bargain.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just get a used car

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article.

It sounds heavy-handed, but anything over 10K needs to be done by cheque/check or electronic payments. When was the last time any legit small store had 10,000$ in the actual building in cash? Never. Many businesses keep less than $1000 in cash in the till, and most keep less than $100, mostly in change. They deposit these things into a safe inside the building, and then an armored car picks up the contents of the safe with their access to it.

Small businesses that don't have this kind of thing, aren't making 10K/day. Hell I worked as a volunteer at a convention, and spent a lot of time just swapping $20's for $5's for people , and the cash box had at most $1000 in it. Nearly everyone pays by credit if given the opportunity, and cash only when it's items under $5. You can't even buy a snack for less than $5.00 USD in most places. It's minimally $2.50 for a soda and $2.50 for a bag of chips from a vending machine or street vendor. If you want a lower price you need to find a vending machine in a transit terminal or recreational center (non-tourist.)

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

2.9% is the average unless you're dealing with highly fraud services like adult sites (eg chaturbate) in which case the fee is like 14%.

It's the cost of doing business.

People who pay in cash, or only accept cash to avoid that fee are also telling people who are willing to spend 10 times that their business isn't welcome. People who don't tip their servers/baristas are also assholes, but that is not because of the removal of cash from the system but because the business makes it look like the tip is an additional optional fee that the business gets, not the server.

Re:Simple solution:

[thegarbz]

Only a couple of months ago I dropped $90K cash on a new car.

Why the hell were you walking around with that much cash? Did you just finalise a drug deal or something?

Re:Simple solution:

[thegarbz]

I always thought Australia was at the forefront with this. .... Till I moved to Europe. I haven't had cash in my wallet in a good 4 months, and even then only because 4 months ago I was in Germany which is not very card friendly.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Monthly rent in a communal house in San Fran.

Every damn month. :(

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article.

Check your assumptions.

It sounds heavy-handed, but anything over 10K needs to be done by cheque/check or electronic payments. When was the last time any legit small store had 10,000$ in the actual building in cash? Never.

Happens all the time. Legit outfits too. Just like civil forfeiture happens to innocents too, and they typically don't get their money back, n'mind reimbursed for the damage, or even an apology. A dropped charge and lingering stigma is usually the only thing you get for all the trouble.

That many criminals also prefer (or have to) keep large amounts of cash on hand does not change that.

And again, even a couple thousand a month can be labeled as "structuring", because who knows, maybe they're "part of a money laundring network". Or some other "reasoning" from "law enforcement". They'll think of something because they aren't in this game for justice, they're in the game to "produce convictions", thereby proving their right to exist and securing their budget for next year. It's quite telling that lots of civil forfeiture ended up strengthening the budget of the seizing enforcement agencies. The "thinking" behind this is quite clear and has nothing to do with going after crims. For some it's about the dosh. For a national government, it's entirely about control.

Nearly everyone pays by credit if given the opportunity, and cash only when it's items under $5.

That easily changes with the location and the demographic. Some like their credit cards too much. Elsewhere the situation is different. Even inside the USA, perhaps moreso outside. Wildly different.

I for one used to keep six months rent+food cash on hand, for no other reason than that a government agency once stole one of my bank accounts (over them making unwarranted assumptions; that happens too) and I didn't want to run the risk of not being able to pay rent before another account theft might get resolved. Now, I'm just broke, but if I came into money again, I'd do exactly that again. That's all entirely legitimately hard-earned, all-taxes-paid, money in the house and I'm not even a merchant.

I say your entire post consists of your assumptions based on anecdotes, which aren't evidence.

Re:Simple solution:

[arfonrg]

THAT'S how you get arrested in the US for money laundering (even if you're not laundering money).

Re:Simple solution:

[arfonrg]

It's called “structuring”.

Re:Simple solution:

[swb]

Literal cash, as in a suitcase with bundles of $100s?

One of my post-Powerball winning fantasies was to walk into a Bentley dealership in shorts and t-shirt and tell them I wanted a car and was willing to pay cash. When they blew me off or treated me like a problem, pop open my duffle of cash and start burning $10k bundles in their face, and then walk out and climb into a Rolls Royce.

Re:Simple solution:

[Miser]

You're right. $10K each is illegal. $4555.25 here, $1540.10 there, $2758.27 there, and finally $1146.38.

Who would be the wiser? Keep it random. Keep it spaced out.

These regulations that say you cannot deal with more than $10K in cash at a time (and I'm talking about the USA now) is BS in my opinion, to say nothing of SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) that banks use.

Did you know that there are no "rules" behind SARs? That the penalties are severe enough it entices tellers and financial institution employees to be "fast and loose" and file a SAR if you look cross eyed at them? I'm all for stopping money laundering (although the rich probably get away with it ...) but make sure there are rules to be followed. Not arbitrary where folks are pushed to file them to cover their butts..... (because they don't want to get fined/lose their job, they err on the side of caution)

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

And exactly how does Australia stack up as a super power again? Oh, thatâ(TM)s right, they donâ(TM)t. Shut your hole, you Botany Bay descendent shitbag.

Re: Simple solution:

[tehcyder]

All fish, large and small, not just the criminal fish. This sort of law is incapable of discerning criminality.

Random real world example: Mom+pop store puts weekly revenue in the bank. Bank gets ornery when they make more than $10k/week, because "suspicious transaction reporting" paperwork. Mom+pop store doesn't know why, but obliges bank by splitting deposits. Gov't agent swoops in, "structuring", and liberates mom+pop from their hard-earned, prosecuting them besides for money laundring and mail fraud. Just one example.

Even if they drop the case --but curiously neglect to give back the money-- that's already easily enough to destroy years of hard honest work. Being a law-abiding citizen makes you much more vulnerable to that sort of thing, since it's so much harder to recover from. Even if you have "nothing to hide". It makes one wish to sit on a large stash of ill-gotten loot to make the pain go away.

It illustrates the problem: The government pretends to be able to discern whose money stinks worse.

Bullshit, any legitimate business would far rather deal in electronic money. Cash in large quantities is simply a security risk.

Of course, for the libertarians on slashdot, evading tax is counted as an act of heroism rather than a crime, hence the curious nostalgia for cash transactions.

Re:Simple solution:

[sfcat]

America sure is different than the rest of the world. In most developed places, if you even had 90,000 dollars cash on your person or in your house, it would be assumed to come from illegal means.

Hell i can't even take more than $2000 dollars out of the ATM per day.

rich people problems... Austrailia has a big problem with housing speculators, hot asian money, etc. So thats more likely the reason for this decision. Who the hell walks around with 90,000 dollars... where would you even get that much cash? If you are super rich can you just walk into the bank and say "give me a $100k in 20s, here's a suitcase" ??? man i simply cannot picture this world you live in... not sure if its because i'm super poor or not american or what this time.

That's BS. I've personally seen someone count out over a half a million in cash for a house purchase in the US. The government has yet to really act on the huge wave of Chinese purchase of property in the US and most of it was in cash, often for millions a dollars per transaction (US govt made some statements then did nothing). As a side note, getting rid of cash is an incredibly bad idea for a variety of reasons including privacy, unnecessary cost to most people, and the tendency of most people to spend beyond their means with CCs. But hey, you didn't have to do math to pay for your meal.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

$90k is pocket change to real programmers making good money. You can get entry level RPG jobs for 90k with ease if you're willing to relocate. The guys going tensor stuff make a killing, and if I remember right J# devs make a ton too.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

What about home purchases? Will Australians be forced to live in metal cargo crates?

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live it's illegal to make purchases over ~ 50 dollars without going through a bank. But people normally buy real estate in cash. The reason this is allowed is because if the government cracks down on the practice the real estate would instantly die, and with that 100 of 1000s of jobs that depend on it. Not to mention the value of property politicians hold.

Legislating against reality is shooting yourself in the foot.

Re:Simple solution:

[tepples]

There's now little reason to carry cash except for a few areas that don't take cards.

Or 16- or 17-year-olds, who aren't old enough to have a bank account of their own.

Re:Simple solution:

[clodney]

Literal cash, as in a suitcase with bundles of $100s?

One of my post-Powerball winning fantasies was to walk into a Bentley dealership in shorts and t-shirt and tell them I wanted a car and was willing to pay cash. When they blew me off or treated me like a problem, pop open my duffle of cash and start burning $10k bundles in their face, and then walk out and climb into a Rolls Royce.

Though I am sure you would still have many other post-Powerball fantasies to act out, that particular one is likely to disappoint you. Rich people frequently don't look rich, and no car salesman is going to risk blowing the deal by assuming that someone who dresses in shorts and t-shirts can't afford a nice car.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

...any legitimate business would far rather deal in electronic money...

Bullshit. Why would a business want to pay a percentage to Visa etc? They would not. This is exactly why Costco did not permit Visa until they recently got a reasonable deal. They survived just fine on mostly cash (Amex only) transactions. Tell me a Costco store that does not bank over ten K a day?

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

...most of them are really smart...

I will just leave this here.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bs23CjIWMgA

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Increasingly in the US people are reluctant to take bank (cashier's/official) checks because of increased counterfeiting, without calling the bank. The depositing bank has to provide the funds next day from it, but if it later turns out to be bad a week or two later, they'll still take back the funds.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US they will let you open a custodial account with your parent at many banks at those ages. Probably younger for savings accounts.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

And some landlords still only accept cash.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

If the store is routinely putting in more than $10k per deposit, then it ceases to become suspicious activity.
Instead, the bank would file a large cash transaction report, which is much less onerous. Banks will not get "ornery" with customers, as those business accounts make the banks a lot of money.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire humblebrag, broseph!

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

This DOES not work. I used to work at a credit union, and we had entire systems dedicated to detecting exactly this. There are software companies that sell software whose only purpose is to detect structured payments, and we had an entire department dedicated to fraud. Structured cash movement will eventually show up.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're an American - do it in Delaware (or now Nevada as well)!

Re:Simple solution:

[Khashishi]

How do you fit 90k in your pocket?

Re:Simple solution:

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I'm counting on this. There's a McLaren dealership around the corner and the most affordable model is still almost $200,000.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymice]

You call BS on the parent's comment that much of the rest of the world works as such, and then proceed to use an example from the USA...???!!!

The parent is correct. If you're found with such a large amount of hard cash, you'll be put under a lot of pressure to show where it came from, with the threat of confiscation.

And the US is no different. It's called Civil Forfeiture, and its use/abuse has raised a number of public controversies in the media.

Secondly, are you insinuating that Chinese are flying large sums of currency into the States to make purchases & transactions? Because that is also strictly controlled & must be declared at the threat of forfeiture.
Any such transactions are inherently suspicious, which is the entire point of the regulations.

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

People who are too literal about everything should be flogged senseless every time until they learn to not be so fucking literal.

Re:Simple solution:

[jeffb (2.718)]

"A year's salary" is not pocket change.

A month's salary is not pocket change.

I think long and hard before spending a week's salary on a single purchase. Getting that kind of cash from ATMs would take several days, given daily withdrawal limits around here.

Re:Simple solution:

[jeffb (2.718)]

With a checkbook or card, of course.

Re:Simple solution:

[jbr439]

America sure is different than the rest of the world. In most developed places, if you even had 90,000 dollars cash on your person or in your house, it would be assumed to come from illegal means.

Hell i can't even take more than $2000 dollars out of the ATM per day.

rich people problems... Austrailia has a big problem with housing speculators, hot asian money, etc. So thats more likely the reason for this decision. Who the hell walks around with 90,000 dollars... where would you even get that much cash? If you are super rich can you just walk into the bank and say "give me a $100k in 20s, here's a suitcase" ??? man i simply cannot picture this world you live in... not sure if its because i'm super poor or not american or what this time.

We have the exact same problem in Vancouver - housing speculators, hot asian money, etc. We even had people walking into casinos with $10s of thousands, usually in $20 bills, or even $100,000 to $200,000 in duffel bags, exchanging it for chips, and then cashing it out - voila, money laundered. So, count me in as incredulous as to why anyone needs to be walking around with $10,000 in cash on them.

Re:Simple solution:

[lsatenstein]

Of course, when you head to the license bureau to show proof of ownership of the 30K vehicle, how are you going to do so? Will you provide a cheque for $30,000 of money you do not show as assets?

The regulation is put into place because the taxes are too high. Australia, lower your tax rate, and cheaters will do their fair share of payments. Then you can stop to enforce that $10k limit.

Re: Simple solution:

[Cederic]

When was the last time any legit small store had 10,000$ in the actual building in cash?

I see you've never worked in a city centre pub at a weekend.

Re: Simple solution:

[Cederic]

Plus of course the store will have a till roll (electronic or paper) that shows sales made, and will add up to that deposited sum.

Otherwise they're in deep shit on the tax front anyway.

Re:Simple solution:

[david_thornley]

That transaction must have taken a while. The US hasn't issued bills greater than $100 since 1969 Five thousand hundred-dollar bills makes half a million. Spending one second counting each bill would have taken over an hour and a half, and that seems fast to me in counting and recounting bills for a large transaction. I'd also expect the people receiving the bills to be unhappy, considering cost of security and actually depositing those bills.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there were fancy devices that can count currency faster than a half blind grandma..

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I question how many of those large "cash" transactions are with real cash. For bookkeeping purposes, "cash" is often anything that doesn't run through the credit system, so a check or even, possibly, a debit card transaction is functionally cash - absent fraud (like writing a bad check) the money is transferred from their bank to your bank and it's done. Non-cash transactions would involve credit of some kind, usually a loan or a credit card transaction. And I've done large actual cash transfers (though never even near $10K, which is kind of an arbitrary number and has existed so long that it's surely in need of an inflation adjustment). Note: many banks don't keep enough large-denomination cash on hand to satisfy a demand for more than a few $1000 at a time. And it's hard to get denominations larger than $1K, period. So how does one get $90K in bills you could fit in your front pocket?

Re:Simple solution:

[JoelKatz]

So how do you buy a car if no bank or financial institution is willing to do business with you? If the government is going to pass laws requiring you to do business with banks and FIs to live a normal life, surely they can't continue to allow banks and FIs to pick and choose their customers arbitrarily.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I donâ(TM)t understand your point, why must I send 3% of my spending to visa/MasterCard/ processor
It is not the cost of doing business, it is money out of my pocket to some corporate

Re:Simple solution:

[swb]

Then why do car salesman at luxury dealerships treat me like such an asshole?

And I'm not even talking about Bentley-scale luxury, either. They fucking size you up in a heartbeat and give you the brush off if you just walk in.

Some of this may be that people with REAL money don't waste time walking into the dealership, if they handle it themselves they probably call the dealership and talk to sales person, and it's something like:

"Yeah, I'm Preston Biggs, I live in the Luxury Hills community. I want to buy a new Mercedes, but want to test drive the E63 and the S65. I'm home Tuesday afternoon, can you bring the cars by? I will have a check for you after I make a choice and you can leave a loaner with me until you can deliver the new one with my specs."

Walk-ins at a high-end dealership (that doesn't sell shitty starter models) are fantasy tire-kickers for the most part and I think they just want to steer them out as painlessly as possible.

Re: Simple solution:

[Peter P Peters]

Hear hear! I also support taking rights away from people that arent me. There's more to the argument than that, but keep living in black and white land if that helps you sleep better...

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. This is one of those cases where it's illegal to obey the law.

Re: Simple solution:

[Alien7]

Come to Milwaukee, WI sometime and behold a dirth of bars that only accept cash because they don't want to pay transaction fees or deal with drunk people running up tabs they can't pay for

Re:Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

My 14 and 16 year olds both have their own bank accounts with an EFTPOS card attached.

There would be bigger questions than how they were going to spend it if either of them had more than $10,000!

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

All fish, large and small, not just the criminal fish. This sort of law is incapable of discerning criminality.

Random real world example: Mom+pop store puts weekly revenue in the bank. Bank gets ornery when they make more than $10k/week, because "suspicious transaction reporting" paperwork. Mom+pop store doesn't know why, but obliges bank by splitting deposits. Gov't agent swoops in, "structuring", and liberates mom+pop from their hard-earned, prosecuting them besides for money laundring and mail fraud. Just one example.

Even if they drop the case --but curiously neglect to give back the money-- that's already easily enough to destroy years of hard honest work. Being a law-abiding citizen makes you much more vulnerable to that sort of thing, since it's so much harder to recover from. Even if you have "nothing to hide". It makes one wish to sit on a large stash of ill-gotten loot to make the pain go away.

It illustrates the problem: The government pretends to be able to discern whose money stinks worse.

Bullshit, any legitimate business would far rather deal in electronic money. Cash in large quantities is simply a security risk.

Of course, for the libertarians on slashdot, evading tax is counted as an act of heroism rather than a crime, hence the curious nostalgia for cash transactions.

Thank you for recognizing that there is a subset of us that utterly rejects the state as a legitimate institution. Taxation is indeed oppression in so far as it is forcibly applied to those who reject the government whole. I think what upsets non-libertarians the most about this view is that it's so obviously right and that all the arguments in favour of taxation are so obviously contrived and flawed.

Still, there's no denying that power is being consolidated globally and that, owing to propoganda, humanity will be unable to escape this trend. One day we can expect to live under a totalitarian world government (the UN) with no escape. If there is any hope at all, it rests with the black market. If my children are to find any peace or dignity in the future, it will be because technologies like Bitcoin spark a new industrial revolution, a throwing off of supposedly divine despots and the embracing of tolerance, respect, and trade.

Re:Simple solution:

[jeffb (2.718)]

From or to anybody we'd recognize from the news?

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, Australia wasn't the USA, despite dumb Americans thinking they are the centre of the universe. Also, a business depositing cash into a bank isn't a purchase, which is the only thing addressed in this law.

Re: Simple solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Come to Australia sometime, the subject of the article your didn't even bother to read the title of, and find out that we are far more advanced when it comes to electronic banking, payments and POS systems. The costs of EFTPOS are negligible, especially when compared with the costs associated with dealing with cash. Oh, what's that? You live in some backwater country that doesn't have EFTPOS and still deals in cheques? Sucks to be you.

Re: Simple solution:

[laughingcoyote]

When I worked fast food, I periodically went to help at one of our stores that was located at Coors Field, the Denver baseball stadium. I guarantee you, after a sold-out game, we had well over $10,000 in cash.

I didn't handle depositing it (and I would have refused if they'd wanted me to), it was given to an armored car company, but it was a perfectly legitimate enterprise that was depositing substantially more than $10k. The reason people are willing to pay exorbitant fees to set up an outlet in a stadium is because those outlets rake in money like you would not believe.

How can this curb illegal activity?

[ZorinLynx]

If you're already engaging in an illegal transaction, money laundering, etc... why would you let the fact that paying over $10K in cash is illegal stop you?

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

because terrorism.. stop supporting the terrorists!

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[mikael]

The black economy is usually someone paying a car mechanic, builder or joiner to do some work, while not declaring the transaction and pocketing the VAT/income tax for themselves. In rural areas, they also exchange or barter services instead of transferring cash. Sometimes payment is acceptable as bottles of wine, firewood, scrap metal, old appliances or anything else.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[bobbied]

If you're already engaging in an illegal transaction, money laundering, etc... why would you let the fact that paying over $10K in cash is illegal stop you?

You won't, this will just keep honest people honest. Criminals will still do what they want.

Next step will be to convert all the paper currency into new script, requiring all cash to be exchanged (and identities recorded) for new (with daily limits) or deposited into a bank account (again with limits of new script withdrawal). That's what they did in India to curb this "off book" cash transaction thing.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has specifically to do with people trying to escape the VAT tax. And why any kind of VAT tax would be bad for the US, because then you'd have the exact same thing.

People paying for big ticket items with cash, then reporting different numbers on the books so they escape the VAT. Then lawmakers wanting to crack down on purchases above 10K

Sorry Aussies you had to lose your freedom like that.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[hazardPPP]

If you're already engaging in an illegal transaction, money laundering, etc... why would you let the fact that paying over $10K in cash is illegal stop you?

Not only that, I actually fail to see how this measure solves anything.

The people who are the *real* problem when comes to tax evasion and tax avoidance - the super-rich who keep their money in offshore tax havens and the global mega-corporations doing double dutch sandwiches and whatever - don't do cash transactions over $10K. They have their lawyers wire the money from the Cayman Islands to Macau, or whatever.

Ordinary folks that pay the car mechanic or the painter in cash to avoid paying taxes don't pay over $10K in those transactions, that's usually a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.

So this might only catch criminals that seek to buy things at a legitimate establishment, say a drug dealer who goes into a department store or a car dealership. Probably not a very large demographics.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Luckyo]

It's about the extra tools provided to relevant state enforcement bureaus. If you need an example of how this works, remind yourself what Al Capone was nailed for.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is a naive rule, but it does help to prevent laundering money through legitimate businesses.

A large business that would even be willing to accept that amount of cash for a transaction would likely have a lot of other cash that eventually gets pooled before being exchanged with a bank (or set of banks) in exchange for an equal value credited to their bank account(s). Also, most organizations that have that type of money will have to count the cash before sending it off, which further tends to pool both laundered and unlaundered money together, thus making it harder to trace its source.

I live in the US and I cannot name too many businesses that would be okay accepting greater than $10K in a single transaction in literal cash (as opposed to a bank transfer or cashier's check). I would think that requiring some form of legal hoops (e.g., documentation tracing the source) for this amount of cash transfer would be enough to have the same effect without reducing usage of the nation's legal tender.

At the end of the day, I wonder if this is less about curbing illegal or illicit activity versus the first step toward limiting cash spending so that all purchases, little-by-little, can become more easily tracked and monitored almost immediately.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just sucks that Trump is allowing the Bush-era policies to continue Obama decided to allow them to continue too. Not only is structuring illegal. The appearance of structuring is illegal

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a criminal.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The appearance of structuring is illegal. You don't even have to do it. Thus buying a Toyota Corolla is illegal.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sold my 1993 Corolla for $5,300. That isn't much less than the Democrats want to be counted as structuring. My bank, Bank of America, can't even tell me if they reported that according to the Obama rules. I fully expect the FBI to contact me again for how much I sold my car for.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse, the law allows the government to assume structuring without proving that structuring was the intent. In the US it's been used to forfeit assets of naive but innocent people.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[GerryGilmore]

This is a pretty dumb statement for one with such a low UID.
First, this was never intended to stop criminal-criminal transactions, but those where cash is used with a legitimate business (criminal-citizen), either to launder cash or just buy something without having a citizen's normal paper trail. Think cars, houses, even businesses.
Does that help you understand?

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump has cut unemployment to less than full employment. That proves Trump supports slavery. Making people work is slavery.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[rogoshen1]

Aussies have a very long history of losing their freedom. In fact, it might be one of the defining characteristics of their country.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Zaelath]

It's hysterical though to watch Americans talk about freedom while having civil forfeiture laws that lets cops steal money and put it literally in their own pockets as wages.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[BeauHD (5)]

Shut up

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[rogoshen1]

I was joking. But, parent is not wrong.

civil forfeiture is wrong.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[argumentsockpuppet]

Why? Having a fresh black eye myself makes me more empathetic and concerned when I see someone else with a fresh bruise.

America is very much like a person. We hold ideals that we completely fail to live up to. We proclaim that all men are created equal, but in the same breath we make sure that everyone understands we mean only white male land owners. Slowly we mature, maybe people who don't own land can have a vote. Maybe black people are nearly people so they get part of a vote. Women? They're kinda people, fine. You know what? Black people get to vote too. Everybody gets a vote, how do you like that? (No, of course we don't mean everybody, we do have standards! You can't be treating people who committed a felony as a kid like real people or filthy foreigners have a voice.)

Everybody gets guns so they can shoot government officials. Well on second thought, maybe only "good" people. Also, maybe just some kinds of guns. Now that we government officials think about it, no shooting government officials.

America is your racist, misogynist, bigoted great uncle Sal who is slowly, ever so slowly, realizing that people are people. Sure he still steals the silverware and punches other family members, but at least he is trying to improve himself. Still, despite all his stupid quirks and frankly evil past, you kinda love the guy. He really does seem to love everybody if you can see past his failings. He's slowly turning into a decent human being. He could even be a mature, respectable adult that you're glad came to the reunion... if he lives long enough. And would quit getting in drunken fights. And would stop trying to steal your wallet. And maybe quit spitting on your friends.

Meanwhile you just noticed Auntie Sarah started taking silverware too. Come on Sarah, you need to set an example here, for everybody, but especially for Sal!

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes Trump making people work is slavery. We should instead pay people enough to not to have to work.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[BeauHD (5)]

So who should get the money, convicted felons or the government?

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[AHuxley]

10000 will be down to 1000.
Next some professions will have to support 100% electronic payments.
The main idea is to make structuring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... difficult.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The best way to prevent a criminal from breaking about a dozen laws is to force him to break a baker's dozen instead." - Liberal Logic

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is fighting against people like here in Seattle that don't count our vote:

https://i.imgur.com/mXoDIVP.png

My vote has only counted once since 2005 as proved by that screenshot. My vote has been thrown in the trash year after year,

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Bing Tsher E]

The non-convicted non-felons the police took it from.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[dryeo]

Canada just removed legal tender status from any denominations that are no longer printed. The idea being to demonetize any $1000 bills still out there but it also means that the couple of $1 and $2 bills I still have are no longer legal tender.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[dryeo]

That's freedom, the freedom to infringe on other peoples rights.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Bing Tsher E]

The 'blacks count as a fraction of a person' law that you mention was actually a rule forced on the slave states by the non-slave states. The northern states didn't want blacks to be counted as a whole person because that meant more representatives would be apportioned to the states with lots of blacks in them. The southern states wanted blacks counted as a whole (non-voting) human.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[skegg]

Exactly what I was going to say. In the near future $10,000 will be hailed (rightly, wrongly, or exaggeratedly) as a huge success in reducing tax evasion, with a new limit of $5,000 or less being proposed.

Meanwhile, if the politicians really wanted to limit tax evasion (err, avoidance) they'd ban money coming into/going out to tax havens. After all, they implement bans for other things. Of course then they'd be punishing themselves and their wealthy friends.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[dryeo]

Here in BC, it seems a favorite way to launder money is at the casinos and they'll be laundering more like a $100,000 in cash at a time.
I've also heard there's quite a black market for winning lottery tickets.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[dryeo]

I live in the US and I cannot name too many businesses that would be okay accepting greater than $10K in a single transaction in literal cash (as opposed to a bank transfer or cashier's check).

Casino's

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[dev-in-seattle]

civil forfeiture is definitely wrong. the idea that an org like your local cops can be incentivized to pick people who are unlikely to get a good lawyer to argue against seizing their property, where you (the cops) get to keep that property for yourself. That sounds like the mafia.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you vote the wrong way, why should you be allowed to vote?

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[mikael]

And then they move on to seizing unused bank accounts.

California already seizes bank accounts that are idle for more than three years. This messed up the tradition of parents/grandparents opening a large savings account for their grandchildren and letting the account mature for 16 years.

The UK has followed this lead and is now seizing bank accounts that are idle for more than 15 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/mo...

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[rogoshen1]

But you left out the most delicious part -- you as the owner of that property have ZERO standing in the court case. Basically the case is 'people vs john doe's belongings'.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but we've hung on about 50 years longer than the USA managed.

I think we're just trying to emulate the world leader.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Uberbah]

The 'blacks count as a fraction of a person' law that you mention was actually a rule forced on the slave states by the non-slave states.

Plot hole: if the North was capable of forcing such a stipulation on the South, it also would have been capable of forcing the census to ignore slaves - or banning slavery entirely.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin wallets never expire and canâ(TM)t be seized..

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they wonder why people flock to bitcoin and other alternative currencies.. Reminds me of some saying about star systems slipping through fingers.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't. This isn't about that sort of black economy. Nor is it about companies trying to skip GST - almost all of those companies are small transaction, high-volume traders (think your local "cash only" takeaway, or a tradie doing a cheap job on the side for cash).

Ignore the red herrings, this is about further tightening the screws of the surveillance state.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why resort to civil forfeiture as an example. Americans aren't even allowed to walk across a road without being fined for jaywalking. Seriously, in the land-of-the-free you can't even walk on public land.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

And a receipt is still not generated, and the buyer knows they are breaking the law.

So, once again, I don't see why either party will care?

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Tyrannosaur]

If there is a conviction associated with it, then it is criminal forfeiture and not civil forfeiture

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hysterical though to watch Americans talk about freedom while having civil forfeiture laws that lets cops steal money and put it literally in their own pockets as wages.

This is Literally not true, or how civil forfeiture works. Nor how the works literally works. The OP has no idea what they are saying.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Peter P Peters]

If you're already engaging in an illegal transaction, money laundering, etc... why would you let the fact that paying over $10K in cash is illegal stop you?

Because it's one more way to get caught. Just because some things are already illegal doesn't mean we should stop trying new ways of catching criminals.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Peter P Peters]

Aussies have a very long history of losing their freedom. In fact, it might be one of the defining characteristics of their country.

But Australia has a higher quality of life, lower mortality rate, higher life expectancy etc than the US. So I'm not sure Freedom is all it's cracked up to be...

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Psssssst - your ignorance is showing.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[jaa101]

I have some bad news for you. At least here the government has to follow a process prior to confiscating your property, but they never need to charge you with a crime and you're the one who has to prove your property's innocence.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah look being an Aussie myself but leaving there a few years ago, the truth is you'd most likely die of bordem before reaching old age anyway, 90% of the place is desert and the 10% which is habitable is full off TripAdvisor reviewing control freaks who just love bitching about absolutely nothing, because, yes because its fucking boring.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[thegarbz]

If you're already engaging in an illegal transaction, money laundering, etc...

This has nothing to do with stopping illegal activity and everything to do with stopping undeclared tax free jobs. It's just tax avoidance, nothing more.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[thegarbz]

In rural areas

Errr. Try in the middle of a city of 5 million people too. Items considered valuable by a party are easily exchanged regardless of where you are.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[thegarbz]

It's even funnier that in response to the obvious joke you call out American cops as being the criminals when in fact ours:

http://www.nationalgeographic....

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[thegarbz]

The people who are the *real* problem

Interesting defining the "real" problem in terms of people rather than in terms of amounts.

If 10000 people avoid paying $1000 is that a real problem compared to 18000000 avoiding paying $1?

The whole Cayman Islands thing is a complete red herring. The rich don't pay taxes not because their funds are stashed in some Cayman fund, that applies to maybe a handful of people only. They simply use the tax laws to their advantage locking up their money in assets which they depreciate in exchange for tax cuts among many other rules. You can avoid paying tax quite happily within Australia.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Zaelath]

If the money went into "general revenue" with no earmarking, it /might/ be reasonable for cases where people can't explain how they got the money. But neither of those clauses are required currently.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[jedidiah]

> It's hysterical though to watch Americans talk about freedom while having civil forfeiture laws that lets cops steal money and put it literally in their own pockets as wages.

Says butt hurt weenie whose ancestors were deported to a giant penal colony.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[jedidiah]

> But Australia has a higher quality of life

Disraeli would be proud of you.

Tell yourself whatever you need to in order to get through the day.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[mjwx]

The black economy is usually someone paying a car mechanic, builder or joiner to do some work, while not declaring the transaction and pocketing the VAT/income tax for themselves. In rural areas, they also exchange or barter services instead of transferring cash. Sometimes payment is acceptable as bottles of wine, firewood, scrap metal, old appliances or anything else.

That is the grey economy in Australia (AKA the cash or beer economy).

The black economy is illicit trade, (drugs, firearms and other controlled items).

This move is just another "do something" from Fizzer's incompetent government on their slow, inevitable march out of office (Australia's current PM, Malcolm Turnbull is called "Fizzer" as an ex-PM described him as "A lot of fizz, but no bang").

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[mjwx]

Here in BC, it seems a favorite way to launder money is at the casinos and they'll be laundering more like a $100,000 in cash at a time.
I've also heard there's quite a black market for winning lottery tickets.

Its a terrible way to launder money no matter what. Much easier to run it through a series of legitimate fronts $5 at a time.

This is just an incompetent government trying to make it sound like they're "tough on crime" whilst a Royal Commission into the banking industry is turning up some really ugly skeletons that they're desperately trying to ignore. A case of "look over there and pay no attention to the cluster-fuck behind the curtain".

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Headw1nd]

You do not have to be convicted of anything for your money to be seized by civil forfeiture.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[hazardPPP]

Interesting defining the "real" problem in terms of people rather than in terms of amounts.

If 10000 people avoid paying $1000 is that a real problem compared to 18000000 avoiding paying $1?

The whole Cayman Islands thing is a complete red herring. The rich don't pay taxes not because their funds are stashed in some Cayman fund, that applies to maybe a handful of people only. They simply use the tax laws to their advantage locking up their money in assets which they depreciate in exchange for tax cuts among many other rules. You can avoid paying tax quite happily within Australia.

It's also a matter of enforcement. Say everyone in the country is avoid paying $1-2 of taxes. That adds up to a lot. However, can you enforce it? Without some Orwellian scheme, I mean. Now assume a few thousand people are avoiding paying a few tens/hundreds of thousands (and maybe millions) of tax? Easier to enforce, as you are chasing less people, and the payoff will be bigger, since each person caught nets a bigger amount.

Is offshoring limited to "maybe a handful of people only"? I doubt, since estimates say that up to 10% of global wealth is stashed offshore. That doesn't seem like just a handful.

Of course the other things you mention are important. The rich can game the system and legally avoid paying tax, while the average bloke on the street can essentially only evade taxes illegally - and be punished for it when caught.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Zaelath]

Sure dickhead, but more English prisoners were sent to the USA than Australia.Besides, I'm a wog, we came from Italy of our own volition.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hysterical though to watch Americans talk about freedom while having civil forfeiture laws that lets cops steal money and put it literally in their own pockets as wages.

I agree 100%. America is distorted. Some things like "gun rights" are seemingly unlimited, but there are cases where property can be seized without due process. The other one that comes to mind is taking laptops and such at the border.

We also make excuses left right and center to ignore our own rights. What to disenfranchise people? Well they are not "our people". Done. Now we can do what we want with them since they are not "our people". Gitmo continues to be our "shining star" there, and many are proud of our "cleverness." It does not bother them at all, since once people are "other" we can do with them what we want with them. This country has a long history of that.

Want to limit the votes of your political enemies? Do what you can to drive minorities out of the country and make them scared even to go to law enforcement to report crimes lest someone they know is deported. Heck while your at it purge some voter rolls. Not all of them will bother to get it straightened out.

Hell the chief law enforcement guy just said they are going to start splitting up kids from parents if the parents are illegals. Seriously, they won't be kept together if they are apprehended. And yet their was no outrage...

I think ultimately we have the freedoms we value enough to protect. The rest of them just slowly slide away to dust...

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Zaelath]

Yeah, as I said later (but before this post) the state seizing property and it going into general funds is a LOT different to Johnny Law seizing whatever he likes for no reason and it going DIRECTLY into his local funding.

You need to find a better counter-example than "growing a commercial quantity of cannabis for personal use". While I think it should be legal, that doesn't mean this is anything like the extensively documented abuse of power that is happening for personal enrichment in the US.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[sfcat]

The 'blacks count as a fraction of a person' law that you mention was actually a rule forced on the slave states by the non-slave states.

Plot hole: if the North was capable of forcing such a stipulation on the South, it also would have been capable of forcing the census to ignore slaves - or banning slavery entirely.

Its actually part of the US Constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[drinkypoo]

Not only that, I actually fail to see how this measure solves anything.

It solves the question of how politicians can look busy

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[edtice1559]

Laundering at the casinos is relatively easy. Although not necessarily $100k at a time. Professional blackjack players often go to the bathroom and slip chips into their pockets so the casinos don't know how much they are winning. Then they later cash out some of the proceeds anonymously. Money launderers do the opposite. They'll buy in for anonymously for $1000, play for a while (win or lose, doesn't matter much), then leave. Come back the next day buy in using their player card for $1000. Leave the table, sneak chips out of their pocket and cash in using their player card. Makes it look like they won. You don't need any front business or infrastructure.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Uberbah]

Nah, just your lack of reading comprehension.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Reverend Green]

The law is a whore. Is anyone really surprised that the nobility get a free ride, well tyrants' boots stomp in the face of us commoners?

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Reverend Green]

I believe the old fashioned term for that is "brigandry under color of law".

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Reverend Green]

In Soviet America, cash spends you!

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[david_thornley]

Not quite. It wasn't racial. The natives are mentioned a couple of times in the Constitution, but there are no other references for race. The phrasing was "slaves and other unfree persons". The northern states in general didn't want slaves counted at all, the southern states wanted them counted in full, and three-fifths was a compromise.

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[david_thornley]

It wasn't a matter of force. It was a matter of getting enough states to ratify the Constitution. Northern states weren't going to ratify if a slave counted full, and southern states weren't going to ratify if a slave didn't count at all. I doubt anyone actually liked the three-fifths compromise, but enough people didn't see it as a deal-breaker for it to go through.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those old $1 and $2 bills are still worth something to collectors, perhaps even more than their face value, depending on condition. Hell, I'd probably pay you a fiver and a beer to take one of those ones, but I'm a cheapskate of a Canadian so you might want to find a better offer before taking mine. :)

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

> adds up to a lot

Not really. Everyone in the country is 325 million people. About 60-65 million are children, so they obviously don't count. Also, 45% of American households don't pay income tax. That drops you down to around 150 million people.

$300 million feels like a lot of money to normal people, but it's a tiny amount in the federal budget of $4000000 million (4 trillion)

Looking at it another way, if you're buying something for $4000, do you worry about whether or not you went to the bank to deposit a couple of stray quarters on the way to the store?

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Zaelath]

I figure you're shitposting, or drunk, but:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Maybe I should explain how money is fungible and having this money to pay for "other expenses" allows them to hire more police?

Nah, waste of time.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Peter P Peters]

Tell yourself whatever you need to in order to get through the day.

Ironic.
But it's not me saying it, it's called metrics They come in handy for comparing things.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't, this will just keep honest people honest. Criminals will still do what they want.

There are many honest criminals out there. Reputation is very important in the black market.

This will just keep obedient people obedient. My expectation and hope is that as the authoritarians place yet more restrictions on people, some previously obedient people will become disobedient. Hopefully, mindlessly obeying the law will be considered less and less a virtue. They're tightening their grip today and I'm hoping that a few more star systems will slip through their fingers as a result.

Re:How can this curb illegal activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, your are confusing [shade] Economy with the [shade] Market.

Black Economy = Grey Market.
Illicit trade = Black Market.

This law is 100% about tradesmen and business doing cash jobs and has nothing to do with drug dealers and money laundering. That's why they are talking about "unfair competitive advantage".

Re: How can this curb illegal activity?

[Uberbah]

Yes, I do happen to know what a compromise is and how the 3/5 rule came about. Which was the point: the detestable 3/5 rule came about through negotiation, not something forced on the South by the North, as the parent had stated.

Well, good luck attracting drug kingpins then

[elrous0]

They're all moving back to Miami, where you can buy a mansion with a suitcase full cash still. The real estate agent will even agree to clean the coke dust off for free.

Re:Well, good luck attracting drug kingpins then

[bobbied]

If the Kingpin is trying to avoid financial scrutiny then paying in cash isn't enough. You may pay the owner in cash, but somebody will have to make a bank deposit eventually. Any Banking transaction in excess of $10K is reported, cash or otherwise in the USA.

Re:Well, good luck attracting drug kingpins then

[bobbied]

Have you heard of a safe. If you are operating in cash what is the bank for?

Usually, a bank (or some company subject to the reporting laws) is involved in a real estate transaction in some way. Unless the real estate being purchased has no leans (unlikely) you are going to trigger a report when the bank gets paid and the lean released. If the title is free and clear, the seller will be required to report the sale on their taxes, even if no capital gains are involved. Also, if the property value exceeds just under $170K the realtor will be getting paid in excess of the reporting limits too. It's going to be pretty hard to avoid tripping a report being made, not impossible, but hard.

Re:Well, good luck attracting drug kingpins then

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple fact that you don't know it's spelled "lien" instead of "lean" indicates that you may not have a fucking clue what you're talking about.

Re:Well, good luck attracting drug kingpins then

[edtice1559]

If somebody bought my mansion for cash, the first thing I would do is deposit the money in a bank. That's how the trail starts. If you're a kingpin, you have a shell company buy the house, live there, and make it very hard for anybody to figure out who the real controlling owner is.

Crypto Currency

[Archangel Michael]

Thanks for the recommendation to move to Crypto Currency for all transactions over $10K. - Australian Unintended Consequences Department.

Re:Crypto Currency

[cheesyweasel]

All crypto transactions in australia over 10k are required to be lodged with AUSTRAC - http://www.austrac.gov.au/medi...

Re:Crypto Currency

[Archangel Michael]

Australians put up with that crap?

Re:Crypto Currency

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of obvious naughty reasons for such huge cash transactions come to mind. I'm not sure the privacy of the non-naughty .01% is that important.

Re:Crypto Currency

[Anonymous Coward]

We're a nation built on crime. Some people were bothered by how difficult it is to honor our convict history, so we've introduced laws like this to make it easier.

Re:Crypto Currency

[slazzy]

That's okay, my bitcoin server is located in Switzerland for all my bitcoin transactions.

Re:Crypto Currency

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the log out of your own eye. Our country (USA) is going down the same road.

Re:Crypto Currency

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is a bitcoin server? Do you even know how crypto works?

Re:Crypto Currency

[GumphMaster]

Yes, just like in the United States, for example, Form 8300 and Reporting Cash Payments of Over $10,000.

Re:Crypto Currency

[Anonymous Coward]

keeping it out of the country requires you to declare it on your taxes to the IRS, tho.

they have all the laws in place, they are just waiting to decide how to deal with it

Re:Crypto Currency

[Archangel Michael]

Yes, we have that form, and only banks tend to report transfers of 10K. Personally as a Libertarian, I have a huge problem with the state being involved at that level. But DRUGS!!!!!

Re:Crypto Currency

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

How do they enforce that law? Has anyone ever been successfully prosecuted?

Re: Crypto Currency

[Reverend Green]

Fuck yeah. Who needs that"freedom" bullshit, right?

Re:Crypto Currency

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for scoring me negatively. It shows that the admins at Slashdot have no fucking clue whats going on in Australia. well done.

OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mind if I pay in 4 easy payments of $9,999?

Re: OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they lock you up for structuring. The day of cash is ending, which is sad as hell for privacy. But once again us lazy humans are pushing it along and embracing our government overlords.

Re: OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Crypto will replace it. Buy Bitcoin. With cash.

First they ban guns, then they ban money

[Anonymous Coward]

What next? Free speech?

Re:First they ban guns, then they ban money

[bobbied]

What next? Free speech?

No need to take free speech... They don't have that now.. https://www.lifehacker.com.au/...

Re: First they ban guns, then they ban money

[Anonymous Coward]

Already gone.

Re:First they ban guns, then they ban money

[ravenshrike]

No, next is cash payments of $5000, then $1000, then they force people to a cashless economy for any purchase over $100.

Re:First they ban guns, then they ban money

[Anonymous Coward]

Since WW1, the government has been able to censor publications in the name of national security. For some reason the raft of anti-terrorism laws passed in 2002 wasn't enough for UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which forbids money-laundering and declared persons holding assets. So "The Anti-Terrorism Bill (No. 2) 2005", appeared, increasing the scope of 'inciting sedition' and allowing secret (but not indefinite) detention. The bill conflicts with government duties under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UN ICCPR).

Re:First they ban guns, then they ban money

[Peter P Peters]

No need to take free speech... They don't have that now.. https://www.lifehacker.com.au/...

Holy shit, they must have it really bad then... oh wait http://www.nationmaster.com/co...
If the US put as much effort into improving quality of life as pursuing this misconstrued perception of freedom, then maybe you'd actually have a higher quality of life.

Re: First they ban guns, then they ban money

[Anonymous Coward]

I smell bacon!

that's fucked!

[Hugh Jorgen]

I thought zelle was an invasive intrusion into following monies from end to end, this is just absolutely fucked up.

fascist statism

[Anonymous Coward]

More and more of this is happening around the world, where personal rights and freedoms are exchanged for 'the common good' -- except that the bar for 'common good' keeps lowering, and lowering.

Now, instead of hiring investigators, or thinking of other means to reduce tax fraud -- or simply realising that in a free society, there is only so much one can do -- they've decided to tell you how you can spend your cash. And, demanded that you only spend that cash, beyond a certain limit, within their tightly controlled, highly monitored system.

A system where banks and credit card companies share your data 'anonymized', but in such a way that it can be de-anonymized. A system where everything you spend, in that system, is tracked, cataloged, and monitored by the state, and by private actors, AND by foreign powers.

This is really only part of the problem, though. The real problem is 'feature creep'. As in, this $10k limit will NEVER change.

Inflation has been relatively low lately, but that will not always be the case.

For example, they stopped printing $1000 bills in the year 2000, and started to collect them.

That may not seem like a big deal, but the $100 bill is now the biggest, printed denomination. And just from the year 2000?

Well, $100 worth of groceries in 2000:

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/

Costs $140+ today. And that's with record low, astonishing low in fact, inflationary pressures.

In other words? Eventually, that $100 bill will be like a $20 bill. Then a $5 bill. Then a $1 coin.

Eventually? You don't NEED to MAKE people use electronic, traceable, controllable currency. They just do it because they'd need thousands and thousands of bills to just buy their groceries.

And, don't think you'll use your old bills forever, too. See here, in Canada:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bank-notes-legal-tender-1000-bill-1.4554758

Re:fascist statism

[Anonymous Coward]

Right -- my point was, that $10k limit in Australia? Will be like a $5k limit, with 2% inflation, in 20 years. But inflation doesn't stay at 2% forever, so it will probably be like $1000 in 30 or 40 years.

Enough that the 'current generation' is old or gone, and the 'new' generation doesn't know it any other way. And doesn't realise that via stealth, and slow moving economics, now it is illegal to buy a PS4 and a few games, with cash. Or rent a hotel for a week.

Re: fascist statism

[Reverend Green]

I have over 1,000,000 VND (Vietnamese currency) cash in my pocket right now. That's about $45 USD. And only takes two 500,000 VND notes.

It's really not at all difficult to print a lot of zeros on a piece of paper money.

Re: fascist statism

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy cow, talk about not paying attention man.

Man nations are *removing* larger bills from circulation, on purpose. And the point is, they will NEVER re-introduce them.

The whole point, is that by NOT printing larger bills? They FORCE people to use digital currency. Like debit. Cheques. Anything non-legal-tender. And that as inflation happens, smaller and smaller things are impossible to buy, without using a debit card / traceable currency.

The US should do the same...

[Anonymous Coward]

to push used car prices under $10k. The last two cars I bought were Toyota Corollas well over $10k. I wish the US government had artificially decreased their prices.

Re:The US should do the same...

[Anonymous Coward]

The government should punish the wealthy people that can afford a Corolla. Only wealthy people that aren't a normal person can afford one of those things.

Re: The US should do the same...

[Reverend Green]

I, for one, welcome our new Corolla-driving overlords.

Has anyone told Orwell?

[meerling]

Then again, maybe they list George Orwell as one of their consultants on this decision.

I don't know about Australia

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

But one of the things that as an American gets me about our government is the same people who would propose this will suddenly say "it's not arming terrorists when we discover that they're really misunderstood freedom fighters." Money laundering laws exist in no small part to prevent terrorist groups from self-financing and yet there has not been a single elected official arrested, let alone prosecuted and convicted, for activity that helps violent political groups.

Prelude to interrogation

[mykro76]

Australian Customs already requires you to declare cash over $10,000. This just extends that principle so they can interrogate you about your cash anywhere in the country. For law-abiding Aussies it's no big deal. Visa Paywave has absolutely dominated the market here and virtually all merchants absorb the transaction costs. If you pay the card off monthly it costs you nothing except an annual fee if you opt into a rewards scheme. For big purchases, bank cheques cost $10. I withdraw less than $500 in cash each year.

Re: Prelude to interrogation

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. I stopped carrying my wallet a couple of years ago, just cards in the case of my mobile.. Never have had a issue.

Re:Prelude to interrogation

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you do so ; that is fine.

However, you're advocating that because something is 'fine for you', it must therefore be 'fine for everyone else', otherwise they are 'not law-abiding'. (EG, your statement of "For law-abiding Aussies it's no big deal")

However, as has been shown again and again? Not only does the government store and track information about credit card, debit card, and all other purchases -- but, private industry does via de-anonymized data as well. Not to mention that foreign powers also track, via shell corporations.

You may believe that this is not a big deal .. but it is information that alters political careers. And political careers extend to the non-politic, with 'captains of industry', and those that form/create/police government policy, but are not elected.

It is also information that can be used detrimentally, 30 years from now. Just look at now Norwegians were slaughtered, of Jewish descent, because they used to keep religious preferences at town halls, in Norway, just so you could be buried in a cemetery of your preference. A Good Thing to do for a fellow citizen, until the Nazis invaded and used that same information to haul people away to death camps.

And look at how information as trivial as a signature, when in college 20 years before, had people hauled up in front of McCarthy communist hearings, simple because various actors were interested in what communism was. Something that WAS NOT illegal or even mildly wrong, and suddenly became INCREDIBLY wrong .. enough to have a witch hunt that ruined countless lives.

The government should not have information on people. Private industry should not either. I have zero issue with my neighbour knowing me, my local community knowing me, but the sort of thing where governments store information on people for 40+ years, including all phone calls, web sites visited, people they know, library books they take out, everything they buy, everywhere they go, everywhere they stay, every friend or person you've essentially talked to?

That's incredibly dangerous, for governments change, laws change, and what is a democratic state can descend complete fascism in a matter of 10 years.

Don't think it can't happen, because it hasn't where you live. It has in other democratic countries. It's TOO MUCH POWER for a government to have.

Like many laws like this, it seems good on the surface. "Get those bad people', and all that. But there are other ways to go about this, without taking freedom, rights, and the incredibly important anonymity that private citizens must have from their government, away.

Re:Prelude to interrogation

[WinstonWolfIT]

In 11 years I drew precisely two cheques. It was like autographing a dinosaur. 99.9% of my financial activity was direct debit, automated credit, or pay wave.

Re:Prelude to interrogation

[WinstonWolfIT]

In most cases there's nothing to pay off. My savings account was linked to a Mastercard number and I never paid anything ever above the purchase cost.

Re: Prelude to interrogation

[Bing Tsher E]

Me, I prefer the action I take when I pull my ID out for a policeman to have nothing to do with my smart phone. There is really no reason for the police officer to know if I even carry one.

Re:Prelude to interrogation

[Anonymous Coward]

You do understand that credit cards, checks, and banks have hidden costs associated with them and result in as much as 6% higher prices don't you? It's really sad that people are willing the accept this bull shit because there are people who understand how this sort of policy argued for on the basis of terrorism and crime will line there pocket. You are being used and you don't even know it. I shouldn't be terribly surprised. Most of these socialist hell holes have populations that don't comprehend just how much poorer they and those around them really are. Everything is more expensive because of higher rates of taxation. And it's not just a little bit. It's a lot because even in freer countries with less taxation taxes are insane. In freer states within the USA you can be bulked out of as much as 70% of your income after all taxes are taken into account and this is a conservative estimate.

In NJ there is a 7% sales tax. I had to pay a 7% tax on top of 30% self employment tax. I had to pay another 17% of my income on property taxes. Now taxes have gone up since I left that state for NH and this taxation doesn't take into account other taxes I had to pay. 15-24% depending on the state on top of hidden fees and taxes like the vehicle registration fee. They call it a fee but its no different than a tax. You pay a percentage based on the cars value which is based on the bluebook value of the car every year roughly. But there are other hidden taxes which inflate the price of goods that corporations pay. So even while most taxes are at the individual level we pay hidden taxes through corporations and for those who work for others there are hidden employee taxes on top of income taxes.

Re:Prelude to interrogation

[WinstonWolfIT]

Perhaps, but the cash price and the debit price at checkout are the same. The banks have to make a living too, and it's faster to paywave than to fumble around with notes and coins.

Re: Prelude to interrogation

[Anonymous Coward]

Lick those boots!

Go for it

[rsilvergun]

you do know that Crypto currency is very, very traceable, right?

Re:Go for it

[themusicgod1]

Not really.

Re:Go for it

[Anonymous Coward]

zcash is pretty easily traceable because nobody uses the anon feature

Re:Go for it

[Anonymous Coward]

The ZeroCoin protocol solved that. ZenCash and zCash are still making there way into the mainstream. ZenCash is similar to Dash and we should see support for it at the local level soon enough. ZenCash has the backing of the libertarian community and AnyPay. This is important because a crypto currency without merchant acceptance and use is worthless and there are a lot of things going for ZenCash regardless of this fact. Dash, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Monero are useful crypto currencies today because there are businesses that accept them both online and locally. The later, Monero, mostly illegal online drug dealers but the use is irrelevant if there is demand/use for the currency. What makes a currency valuable are people using it and so there can be hundreds of useful currencies both real and imaginary (digital).

Re:Go for it

[themusicgod1]

This is FUD. A majority (~2/3rs) of zcash payments use the anon feature.

"Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[knorthern knight]

Obama's "Cash-For-Clunkers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... program took an entire generation of affordable older cars oout of circulation. As per "supply and demand", artificially reducing the supply raised prices. What else did anyone expect?

Re: "Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Cash-for-Clunkers was a Bush-era idea to give a bailout for the auto industry, also necessary due to Bush-era policies that overheated the loan market causing it to explode when exposed as a fraud built on lies.

Re: "Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh the old its all Bush's fault argument...

Re: "Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[Anonymous Coward]

AK-CHU-LEE everything that's bad is the fault of people I don't like!

--Political Debate Champion 2018

Re:"Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[drinkypoo]

Obama's "Cash-For-Clunkers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... program took an entire generation of affordable older cars oout of circulation.

No, it really didn't. All the top trade-ins were POSes.

Re:"Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what an affordable older car *is*, do you?

Let me help:

By definition, old and affordable generally means it's shitty. If it was old and unaffordable, it's probably in great shape with almost no miles and a desirable vehicle.

That's primary school economics in a nutshell for you.

Re:"Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Affordable POSs.

Re:"Cash for Clunkers" raised used car prices

[drinkypoo]

You don't know what an affordable older car *is*, do you?

I've owned some 30 cars, all of them affordable older cars. You're out of your element, Donny.

By definition, old and affordable generally means it's shitty.

No, that's horse shit. Cars get affordable when they get old whether they're good or not, just because they're old. Sure, there's a handful of outliers, but most people don't want old cars even if they are good.

If you actually look at the cash for clunkers page, the top ten vehicles turned in are actually vehicles that got shit mileage and were horribly unreliable. Why don't you try this now?

Only for businesses.

[SeaFox]

Can't police person-to-person transactions.

Re:Only for businesses.

[cheesyweasel]

Not until they start RFID tagging currency.

Re:Only for businesses.

[SeaFox]

No, that still wont work. There's no official oversight of the transaction itself.

Even if bills had RFID in them you would have to keep record of who has possession of every bill, and track every single change in ownership of each bill, which is impossible if people can just hand them to each other like... pieces of paper.

I can buy a car for $12,000 from you, and then you can fill out a bill of sale saying I only paid $9,000. I'm under the limit and now how does the government prove I paid more? How do they prove that change in ownership of the other $3,000 wasn't for something else?

Re:Only for businesses.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you are right. If you declare lower deal value, than you have actually paid - it will be quite hard to prove otherwise. Unless you are buying/selling some Lamborghini or Maybach for 9000$. Technically it seems to be OK, but raises suspicion. ;) Also if you business entity and doing this routinely suspicions may rise quite fast due to low profitability and so on. Then single disguised buyer should be enough to bust you.

In EU cash is also limited. In my country I can cash only 600-900 Eur per month without additional witdrawal fees introduced. Now there is a proposal to limit cash deals to 3000Eur but that law was postponed for further discussions. This limit varies from 1000 to 15000 in different EU countries.

Use real money, not fiat

[Anonymous Coward]

If the other party is willing, the next step is to stop using fiat currency. Real money, that is to say, gold and silver -- is not subject to GST, import/export restrictions, or tracking. Even in Australia, so far:

https://www.perthmint.com/storage/help/faq.html#are-there-any-taxes-or-restrictions-on-precious-metals-in-australia

Really hate these laws

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hate these kinds of laws for a lot of reasons. For one reason, because of inflation, soon $10,000 won't be a very large transaction at all. The government should be there to serve the people, not bend them over and fuck them up the ass. This law just insures they can continue the ass-fucking.

Let's barter!

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions of rural Americans returned to barter in 2009. It's the best way to go when jobless.

Wordplay

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you say the black economy is full of niggardly tax payers?

I like cash

[Anonymous Coward]

I purchased a car 2 years ago from a private seller with $17,000 AUD cash.

All I had to do was inform the financial institution beforehand of how much I wanted and when I would collect it. The financial institution would only take a maximum of $10,000 each time from their machine behind the teller counter (I got 10k + 7k). They probably don't want to bother with the government red tape with anything larger as this $10,000 threshold makes them report it to government as required by law.

Fuck you Australian Government, I will do whatever I want with MY MONEY!

This is about government power and tracking everything not about money or taxes.

Apart from this the previous owner had car insurance from the same financial institution (even the same branch) so they knew everything about the car already.

knew this day would come

[sacrilicious]

Guess I'll be buying my hookers by the six pack rather than by the case.

Except

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be one exception to this, cash purchase of any amount should be legal if done in a setting where the transfer can be legally recorded and any taxes owed are paid or accounted for, i.e. At a police station, court, or government tax office.

Re: Except

[Anonymous Coward]

One exception? You are the reason I no longer have empathy for my fellow man. The tyranny that awaits you is richly deserved, and I will not raise a finger to help you. Instead, I will try to ingratiate myself to the powers that be and hope they spare me the worst of it. The people cannot be helped and the last thing they want is freedom.

Common knowledge in AU

[WinstonWolfIT]

I was there for 11 years so I'm not blowing smoke. Any home project, after you get quoted, you ask what's the cash price. It comes down about 40%. 10 grand can pay for virtually every home improvement imaginable.

It's OK

[diginess]

Just make an agreement that it's a loan and give the money to them in two installments or more.

Civil asset forfeiture

[Leuf]

If you can't do anything legal with over $10k in cash, then when they find that you have $10k in cash they just take it from you with no possibility of getting it back. Without that law there's some pesky small possibility that they can't steal your money and get away with it.

how about less taxation instead

[Anonymous Coward]

how about these shitty power tripping politicians and lefty socialist nutjobs focus on reducing the sizr of government and the tax burden on the common citizen?

What they are actually doing

[Anonymous Coward]

Is paving the way for negative interest rates. That's their true end-goal, and you can't have them when people have cash., Don't believe me now? You don't have to. Watch and see. You'll believe me later. It'll be too late for you to do anything about it, but at least you'll believe me.

That's just the beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

The US government already confiscated everyone's gold, and jailed anyone who didn't turn theirs in. It's just a matter of time until the same happens with cash. You'll see.

The Government has the Constitutional Authority to

[Anonymous Coward]

So why does it need yours? Just to take it out of circulation so the value stays propped up for another year?

For that matter, why does it need to "borrow" it from anyone?

All money goes back to the government anyway. You pay taxes on it, the business you spend it at pays taxes on it, that businesses' employees ... rinse repeat. After enough transactions, the government gets the whole thing back whether you pay the taxes or not. Why do they care so much whether you, specifically, remit it?

Re: The Government has the Constitutional Authorit

[Anonymous Coward]

that is

Re: Meanwhile...

[Anonymous Coward]

#PimplyVirginCreimertard

Very good solution

[Pascal Sartoretti]

I probably have a minority opinion here, but I think it is a very good solution : above a certain level, there is no good reason to use cash except for tax evasion, money laundering or other criminal activities. If you buy a house or car, the government will know it anyway...

However, cash must remain possible for smaller amounts. The government does not need to know what I eat, drink or smoke (legal or not...).

Re: Very good solution

[Reverend Green]

How's that bootleather taste?

How does this wealth redistribution scheme work?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who don't understand who profits from this change in the law I'll explain it. This has nothing to do with terrorism or crime. This is just the basis and a side effect might be that government agents can locate a bit more from the rare tax avoidance scheme. The people who are really benefiting are those in the financial sector. For every $10k you charge to a credit card that translates into $300 profit to the banks and it increases the costs of goods by about 6%. You might say it's only 3% fee. WRONG! Well- you would be right about the 3% fee for the transactional cost charged by credit card network processors. It's wrong however as far as a cost to businesses because there is another 3% cost that is the result of fraud. I know because I actually have a business and routinely have to pay for goods of which the stock which is bought is greater than $10K. I'm not filthy rich. My paycheck is $65k / yr although total compensation is probably a little over $100k. I live well and am "rich" in a sense because I choose to live where the cost of living to pay ratio is sane. My $100k would probably need to be $200k in a city like Seattle or San Francisco or NYC.

Easy circumvention

[xenobyte]

1) Buy $9999 worth of gold.
2) Repeat.
3) Repeat.
4) ...

Use gold to buy house or car.

Re:Easy circumvention

[david_thornley]

In the US, you'd get in trouble for stringing together transactions to stay under $10K. Besides, few people accept gold in payment.

...no, you didn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it hard to believe you walked into a car dealership with a bundle of cash.

Sure it's only 900 lyrebirds, but I haven't seen a dealership willing to take anything but a check in well over a decade now.

And if you wrote a check? This law doesn't affect you. What you did would still be legal.

If you wired the money in an account-to-account transfer? This law doesn't affect you. What you did would still be legal.

If you handed the cash to a private individual as a private individual? This law doesn't affect you. What you did would still be legal.

- WolfWings, too lazy to login to /. in too many years.

The best idea is to just make everyone a criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

The real point of this law is that the gov't isn't smart enough to catch the criminals doing crimes. So they make the act of $10k plus transactions a crime. They just make everyone a criminal then they can "sort it out" easily and just decide who they want to prosecute on the back end. These is just the ultra rich people squeezing more control out over it's people.

What the hell happened to Australia?

[ickleberry]

I always thought of Aussie land as a vast remoteness where you can do whatever the fcuk you want. Jovial Mick Dundee characters everywhere throwing back pints of beer in the pub.

10 year olds flying planes

9 year olds driving around in 'utes'

Anything less than 10,000 acres is a hobby farm

Everyone carrying a rifle or two

Everyone too relaxed and chilled out to bother worrying about anything


Then I had someone visit from Aussie land and it turns out you need a fcuking license to drive a jetski. In the open ocean where it's an absolute torture to even find someone to crash into. Everything is gone health and safety like in the UK and the cops are hiding behind every corner to hand out fines. What the hell happened to this once-carefree country?

Re: It's the cost of doing business.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing theres no way to avoid that cost and use cash!

Re: Check YOUR Assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

"cuntries" Lol.

Re: Check YOUR Assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, over here in norf yurp, we basically copy most of the "AML/KYC" BS straight from the US gov't. That, or we copy it from the eurocrats, who copied it from the usg. And add a few twists of their own, of course. 'merkinia is very much an empire yet, and we are its vassal states.