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:

[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]

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:

[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:

[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:

[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:

[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:

[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]

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:

[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:

[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]

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:

[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:

[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:

[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:

[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:

[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:

[jeffb (2.718)]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[rogoshen1]

I was joking. But, parent is not wrong.

civil forfeiture is wrong.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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

[slazzy]

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

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

[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: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/...

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]

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

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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: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.

knew this day would come

[sacrilicious]

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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: 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: The US should do the same...

[Reverend Green]

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