How important is this rule really? Particularly when the title gives the main message. I ask because auto translation is almost perfect for at least all the European languages. I agree maybe there should be a bias towards English but this seems a reasonable exception here
IMO, regardless of the language of the article, if your alternative title summarizes the point as good as or better than the body of the article you're linking then it should just be a text post for discussion in the first place. If you're submitting an external site the focus should be on the content of that site. Encouraging posters to create their own main takeaways when posting and commenters to focus on the HN title instead of linked article seems like a net loss vs using the text post type.
It's very important for proper understanding of such things as translation is currently really not up to HN quality expectations just yet. Maybe in the future as AI gets better at it
For me this translation is extremely easy to understand:
What is the maximum amount I can pay in cash?
At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. For cash purchases above € 10,000, the seller must conduct a customer due diligence. But not all sellers accept cash. The cabinet is working on a bill to ban cash payments from € 3,000.
Pay for purchases in cash
At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. It doesn't matter how high the amount is. A seller can decide not to accept cash above a certain amount. Or not accepting cash at all .
Customer research for purchases above € 10,000
Do you make a purchase that costs more than € 10,000 and do you pay in cash? Then the seller must conduct a customer due diligence . This check is mandatory to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
Bill cash payments up to € 3,000
A bill is being drafted to ban cash payments from €3,000 . This applies to all buyers and sellers of goods. When the new law comes into effect, you may no longer pay for purchases from € 3,000 in cash.
Easy or not, such posts grow long meta threads about the quality of the translation. If the story is HN-interesting, an English source will appear and you can post that. Also has the advantage of not having the poster make up a title.
Proposed legislation in general is not particularly HN-interesting:
I apologize for crossing this rule, but I head to weigh this against the rule that asks for original sources. A google-translate link would not do, I guessed?
I couldn't find an NLTimes article (yet) since this isn't enshrined into law.
You'll be downvoted, but to answer this question with all honesty:
1) Disallowing a third-party in every single transaction you make, especially as
1a) Inflation means 3k now might be quite low in 20 years
1b) Banks themselves have been shown to be scummy
1c) Banks are a rare institution to allow outsiders into.
2) Bank accounts themselves are not actually all that accessible; it's quite common for people to be ineligible for a bank account under random (but common) circumstances. -- an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
3) Cash is the only fiat currency that actually exists, I know it's trendy to think that lines in a database are meaningful- but if you have physical cash you know what it's worth and it can't be hacked or seized. (though a good counterpoint is of course that you can be robbed or it can get destroyed).
I live in Sweden and we're very far down the path of "cash is dead" - there's a considerable number of stores and fast food joints that do not even accept cash. However, when I moved to this country I couldn't open a bank account and without people accepting cash at that time I would have paid exorbitant fees on each transaction.
So with that in mind I'm not in favour of restricting cash, I'm aware of the drawbacks of large fiat currency transactions; but It gives the central banks even more power than they currently have (which is a lot, which you'd know if you were on the wrong side of a policy or get into one of their loops) and we're not sure that they are going to continue to be fair into the future.
Note: you cannot hold a bank account with the central bank that actually issues currency. You are voting for a middle-man.
> Bank accounts themselves are not actually all that accessible; it's quite common for people to be ineligible for a bank account under random (but common) circumstances.
Not in the Netherlands. Any adult (18 or older) resident of the EU has the right to a bank account, by law.
> an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
Why would you need to pay a utility bill to get a bank account? Those two things are completely unrelated. All you need is a valid ID (either ID card, passport or drivers license) and you are required to have that anyway.
You need proof of address too, it's not enough to have just an ID.
A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license. (for example: I didn't when I got my first bank account).
My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID. I can say that with absolute confidence after working in financial services (albeit briefly).
When I got a RealID-compliant driver's license a few years ago in my state in the US, an existing driver's license and passport were not sufficient. I needed some document to server as proof of my current address, such as a utility bill. I don't remember what all the options were but, yes, some people--including kids getting their first driver's license or people sharing an apartment who don't have their name on a lease--can run into issues.
In the Netherlands, the government already keeps track of everyone’s address. If you move, you have to register your new address with the municipality within a certain time frame. (IIRC 2 weeks)
The US is sort of loosey-goosey partly because we're not real big on getting registered with authorities and partly because the states have their own jurisdictions. So, if you're legitimately a digital nomad you sort of would have to do one or more things that are probably in a quasi-gray legal area so you can get ID and not be considered a tax evader.
Yes, and that gets really "interesting" when you don't have a stable address of residence (e.g. because you are traveling for an extended period of time, possibly in-and-out of the country).
In some cases, you can get basically locked out of all essential services, including bank account closures, not being able to make payments (especially now with these laws), etc.
This seems like a pretty basic thing for a government to do. They need to know your address for a lot of things. For example: taxes (notification that you need to file, your returns, etc). Voting (they send your voters pass to your registered address), fines (if you get caught by a speed camera they need to know where the car’s owner lives). Reminders that you need to renew your car’s annual inspection. Etc.
How would you handle those things without the government knowing your address?
I live in the US and most of those are not a thing.
I need to file taxes but no one sends me a reminder. My town asks me to verify my address once a year but nothing (other than possibly being eventually removed from voting rolls) happens if I don't. Driver's license and registration are supposed to be your current address but again I'm not sure anything especially happens if they aren't. No one sends me anything to remind me to get my inspection updated.
So I have a supposedly current address on file with various government agencies but AFAIK there is absolutely no rule that, if I pick up and move I have to tell anyone. I do need to file taxes correctly although, as I wrote elsewhere, if I don't have a permanent address that's simultaneously perfectly legal and something of an edge case.
> How would they do that if they don't have your address?
If you need to deal with taxes, you submit your address to the tax agency.
If you need to deal with license stuff, you deal with the equivalent of the DMV.
And so on.
There's no need to just file your address with the government 'in general'.
> a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?
Internet is kind of irrelevant. Most government agencies don't use the internet to contact people unless they specifically opt in and the agency offers that.
They would use your last known address, or wait for you to contact them.
Well, that sucks. Then again, shitty laws don't deserve to be followed.
You think Europe would have learned a thing or two from WW2 and what was going down on the continent. I guess some behaviors are just too culturally ingrained.
> You need proof of address too, it's not enough to have just an ID.
Yes, but you don’t need a bill for that, you can just get it from the municipality where you are registered.
> A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license.
Anyone age 14 and up is required by law to be able to show an ID when asked. So yeah, everyone here has an ID.
> My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
The rules for children are different. Once you turn 18 you need to ID yourself to the bank. If you don’t do this your account will be blocked. You will be informed of this shortly before you turn 18.
> having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID
You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service. You can send/receive money and get a debit card. Anything else, credit cards, loans, etc. are of course not included.
And sure, if you’ve been convicted of fraud or anything like that, that’s an exception.
> Yes, but you don’t need a bill for that, you can just get it from the municipality where you are registered.
You can't "just" get it if you don't have a fixed address, or if the address isn't eligible for registration (the rules for that are rather strict).
Netherlands is one if the hardest countries if you end up in an "exceptional" situation; you can work around "proof of address" (not always, but frequently), but it's much harder to work around the municipal registration.
Yes, there are rules for exceptions (e.g. "briefadres") and there's stuff like https://www.basisbankrekening.nl – but in reality people are so strict with this that it might as well not exist for vast swaths of people.
If you've never been in an exceptional situation you think it's easy and works grand, and it does, right up to the point it doesn't, at which point you're pretty fucked. People are unaware because they've never experienced it, but it's really awful.
Last year it took me 5 months and a lot of proverbial "banging fist on the table" to get a bank account in the Netherlands. It took me about 2 weeks in Ireland. Just sayin'
I returned to Netherlands after many years abroad and didn't have anything set up except a tax number (BSN) like everyone. This may not sound too bad, but:
- Few people are willing to rent to you if you don't have a Dutch bank account and current registration.
- You can't get registration without a place to rent that qualifies (and many places don't).
I was earning €90k/year at the time; it wasn't a money issue.
> Yes, but you don’t need a bill for that, you can just get it from the municipality where you are registered.
I don't know how it is in Sweden or in the Netherlands, but here in France, I needed a bill or some other "proof of address" to register to vote with the town hall. I had been living in the same apartment for years, and they never seemed to require any proof before sending me the papers asking for the local taxes.
> Yes, but you don’t need a bill for that, you can just get it from the municipality where you are registered.
Yeah, that's not how it works in all European countries. Which can get really "interesting" in some cases, believe me (I've lived through that).
I've also been requested proof of employment, which is also interesting when you're unemployed. In one of the countries, they said I can just give them proof of unemployment benefits... which I don't have, because I left my job willingly.
And then they told me: "well, in that case you can get proof of unemployment from the municipality". Except... that I'm not even living in your damn country and the municipality where I live doesn't even know whether I'm working or not (why would they?!).
But this does not even compare to all the problems I've had when I've not been living in the same place stably for an extended period of time. It has been an absolute hell in some cases, because institutions (governments, banks, lawyers, etc) simply do not account for this possibility. They all assume that you have a stable address of residence.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
> You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service.
I don't think that's how it works. The governments have created a legal requirement for banks to provide minimum banking services, yes. But banks still have to comply with many other very strict requirements and customers may not be able to fulfill them, which prevents them from opening bank accounts.
>But this does not even compare to all the problems I've had where I've not been living in the same place stably for an extended period of time. It has been an absolute hell in some cases, because institutions (governments, banks, etc) simply do not account for this possibility. They all assume that you have a stable address of residence.
I haven't personally had this issue but I know someone who did in the US. No permanent address; they were doing a lot of traveling.
Nothing wrong/illegal about that. But, by the books, it means they can't get a driver's license and other important documents. So you basically have to lie. Either use a third-party digital nomad service (which I understand some states may flag) or find a trustworthy friend or relative to "live" with (who will forward important mail to you and vouch for you if needed--which is what they did). There are still potential issues with respect to things like jury duty but these can mostly work although they're almost certainly at least marginally fraudulent.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
This makes good sense to me in countries where you need to register you home address with the local govt. Then registered mail delivery becomes a form of ID check. This is normal in Japan and other places.
It varies wildly between banks. Proof of address isn't a systemic requirement, it's a soft credit check that unlocks profitable functions.
Many banks (Santander, HSBC just two I checked) have entry points for people who are genuinely homeless. And accepted ID can include simple government things like council tax or a driver's license, but also just a letter from your employer or school. Again these are soft checks.
> Not in the Netherlands. Any adult (18 or older) resident of the EU has the right to a bank account, by law.
For immigrants or foreign workers a process of getting EU residence status may take months and sometimes require an EU bank account, so it may become an infinite loop. We have to take worst renting deals in order to get required papers, for example.
> Bank accounts themselves are not actually all that accessible
If you have a way to prove your ID(which basically everyone do in Norway) then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
> If you have a way to prove your ID(which basically everyone do in Norway)
After going through the process of moving to Norway, I can say that unfortunately things are not that straightforward for foreigners. Even after getting your work permit, getting a personnummer can take up to several months after moving, not to mention getting an appointment with UDI can also take up to several months (in the meantime you'll feel like a lesser member of society, basic things like getting a library card are not accessible without it). After all there's a reason why this kind of service exist https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mpr_sua-techfasttrack-oslo-ac...
> then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
This only works when you already have a BankID. It takes at least 1 month to open your first account. Granted after that, everything is smooth, but oh boy how much time does it take.
ID and a decent credit report. I have been through times in my life where banks wouldn't give my spouse an account at all. No bank in Oregon or credit union would give her an account. To this day she still hasn't had a bank account in the last seven years. I can't even get a card in their name.
A bank checking your credit score just because you want to create an account would be a huge invasion of privacy.
Really? How else can a bank decide how much credit to extend you? Please bear in mind that allowing someone to have a bank account is part of the credit relationship.
All banks use a credit reporting agency, a seperate one. You never discovering this just shows you and those you surround yourself with have never had to deal with it. Thats nice, but also a privliged and ignorant position.
If you think banks always check your credit score then you are just wrong, plain and simple. In Norway you'll always be notified when someone check your credit score, along with what data was provided, who requested it and when.
It sounds like we are getting a thin slice of the full story. What made your spouse's situation unusual such that she could not get a bank account. I am finding some of these posts hard to believe.
Bad credit rating and prior overdrafts is all it is. That's the complete story. Not even extensive overdrafts, like three a year before they lost their ability to get an account.
Depends on country a lot; in the Scandinavian countries there's a central identification database which links your entire identity including the registered address.
However, if I'm not from Norway/Sweden/Denmark then I'm not in that system yet.
> I live in Sweden and we're very far down the path of "cash is dead" - there's a considerable number of stores and fast food joints that do not even accept cash. However, when I moved to this country I couldn't open a bank account and without people accepting cash at that time I would have paid exorbitant fees on each transaction.
I came here to say something similar. We moved to the Netherlands in 2014 from the US and it was three or four months before our immigration stuff was far enough along that we could open a local bank account with an IBAN and get a chip and pin card (at the time, virtually no US banks would give you chip and pin cards). My partner couldn't even get paid during that time until she had a bank account. We lived off withdrawing cash from my US account at ATMs. That included paying our rent (we were lucky that our landlord, who lived in a different city, was OK with us just paying cash to their relative who lived nearby).
I think GP means “exists” as in “doesn’t require a third party to complete the value transfer.”
If you give me a $20 bill, I can immediately exchange it for a case of beer at the bodega with no extra steps. If you give me a money order for $20, I need to find someone who is willing and/or able to convert that money order into a $20 bill before I can buy my beer.
Funnily enough, paper currency originated as something akin to money orders in the first place, and merchants started accepting them directly because they were much more convenient to transport and secure than the equivalent amount of coins. That's why the formal term for paper money is "banknotes".
At least in NL there is no such thing as a 5 day hold on a transfer. Typically these are instant, at worst next business day, and if you use something like "payment request" or "tikkie" all it involves is sending the buyer a link or posting a QR code somewhere to allow them to send money directly, instantly, to your account.
No chance of making errors in the bank nr, you can pre-specify the required amount in the request. No chance of making an error counting out 3K or more in cash notes.
Within the NL banking/payment landscape I'd argue that large cash transactions are more bothersome for everyone involved. (well, unless involving a bank is bothersome to either of the parties, but if that is the case we're probably entering "dubious transaction" or "dubiously sourced money" territory..)
"Next business day" is a huge amount of time relative to the "instantly" that the value changes hands in a cash transaction. Cash also eliminates any need for prying into the background of the buyer: Their proof of ability to pay and payment itself is the stack of cash they have in their hand.
If the government wants to eliminate the requirement of accepting large amounts of cash, I can see that. If you're not equipped to handle being paid in a large cash sum, it can definitely be inconvenient. But making the exchange of large sums of cash between two consenting parties illegal is bold-faced tyranny.
How about handling a large transaction without internet access? Say you want to transact in the middle of space. What now? Wait until you get back to some connection?
As silly as it sounds, this system is not scalable.
The fact that it does not scale into a far far future where more than 0.00000000125% of the humans is in orbit/space does not mean that it is not a good system for today & the upcoming decades.
And that’s the point. If I sell you my used car and find out you paid with stolen funds, I’m not going to get cash clawed back, where I could realistically be out my car and money if someone used a digital payment.
Ease of payment? Paying with a card is much simpler and faster. Take your card, phone or watch and hold it to the terminal for one second and you're done. It's not normal for payouts to take 5 days. In Norway it's the next day.
But people usually do have a terminal to accept payment. If not, they usually just send you an invoice. Makes bookkeeping much simpler for the business too.
I have only paid in-person using NFC for nearly 10 years in Norway. I understand that the situation is different other places, but I'm literally not sure what our physical currency looks like now.
However, I walked into a store in Spain yesterday that was cash only. Now I have cash in EUR that I not only overpaid insanely for because of the ATM , but I also can't use it in Norway. If cash was no longer an option then it would be much simpler and cheaper as my bank does the currency exchange for me.
Digital payments are probably better in every way when it's the norm, except for privacy, and that's a big one.
I don’t know much about Norway, but how would you transact during a natural disaster when power or network services are down for an extended period of time?
I was visiting a place while a mild earthquake. It didn't cause any damage, but it took many locals by surprise, as it didn't take place in a seismic country.
Naturally the mobile phone network, GPRS/3G that POS devices relied on was overwhelmed. And maybe something else went wrong on the banks backend.
So international credit card transactions were hit or miss for half a day. I was happy I had got some local before the earthquake. So I was able to continue the rest of the day with no issues.
LOL. I love these kinds of posts. Ok smarty pants, you like cash. You have none in your wallet during a natural disaster. You need to buy emergency supplies. The ATM does not work. Now what?
Please do not reply to this post saying that you are a "prepper".
How much nonsense is this? Is it so hard to think ahead and go to the ATM before the disaster hits? There are various types of disasters you know, some you see coming for weeks. Many people also keep cash on hand.
All you’ve shown is you have a delayed reaction, and claim preparing for a disaster is a bad thing. I mean think about that for a second.
> ow I have cash in EUR that I not only overpaid insanely for because of the ATM , but I also can't use it in Norway
Ha, well you'll have a heart attack when you look at your visa statement and realized that visa can charge even worse rates for currency conversion than ATM's do.
Plus visa charges the vendor a fee( around 2ish%) that has to be born by the buyer and seller. Cash doesn't have this built in tax.
Now I'll admit I have no idea bout Norway, so maybe you have some special way to pay with zero transaction fees and have the cash show up instantly with no holds on the payment ever, if so, good for you guys.
That's done through a SEPA transfer that shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to complete, last time I paid a contractor more than 4k€ it was in their account in seconds.
There's also the fee. When I bought a used van from a private party recently, I paid $8000 cash. No point in paying an extra percentage just to use a card.
Well, you can just turn off payments on the stolen device.
As for the phone, you need to unlock the phone for larger purchases. The card requires a pin for larger purchases. The watch needs to be unlocked to after being removed from the arm.
Maybe in Norway, but there absolutely is no pin check when making large purchases through at least Apple Card via Apple Pay. I made a $9800 US purchase a few months back and it was just face ID, which apparently can be fooled easily.
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word easily. It can be spoofed, maybe not easily. And people buy things at more than a store, like online, and phones verify those purchases just the same.
Freedom from government surveillance and potential overreach?
In reality, there’s hardly any 3,000 euros+ transaction where a business or individual will accept cash. That’s too much money to have on hand when a bank transfer is much more comfortable…still happens rarely though so I think this law is overreaching.
Disclosure: I’m not Dutch nor European so my opinion hardly matters here.
I think your second sentence/paragraph points out exactly why this restriction is needed: the only people who would ever in their right mind transact in that much cash are very likely to be either avoiding taxation (a.k.a. stealing from the common taxpayer), or keeping money off the books to hide illegal activity.
The average person isn't affected by this type of government surveillance and potential overreach because the average person doesn't buy things that are priced at over 3,000 euros per transaction. They can easily hide all their daily transactions from the scrutiny of government and surveillance capitalism just fine.
This regulation only impacts the wealthiest people and/or the organized criminal.
I purchase, restore, and sometimes sell old woodworking machinery as a side gig to subsidize my own purchase of woodworking equipment for my shop.
I have had multiple cash transactions above $3,000 every year that I've done this. Not to avoid taxes, not to keep them off the books, but because one of the parties has either the unwillingness or inability to take electronic payments. Elderly people, those located in rural or otherwise isolated areas, those with a natural distrust of government for whatever reason, or those with a distrust of banks in general. These are all valid use cases.
This law would make it nearly impossible for me to do what I do (on the side).
Yea, assuming you're in the USA, I don't think a similar restriction would be workable here in America. Too many people are unbanked or for other reasons transact mostly in cash. And even for those who do have bank accounts, we don't have the nice, bank-based money transfer solutions that are commonplace in the rest of the developed world--we're stuck with shit-tier solutions like Zelle and Venmo and PayPal.
I wouldn't say I routinely do large (>$3000) cash transactions, but I do them often enough that I guess I'd be a criminal in the Netherlands.
A mechanic we used before moving had a strict no checks policy. He had a bad check for the repair of a church bus, from a church, framed in a fancy gold-painted frame, with "IN GOD WE TRUST, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH" below it.
Considering that the last time one of my CC numbers was stolen, it was used to pay for air conditioning service, I'm sure that is also a concern for tradespeople!
Really really, it's like that here. I guess it's somehow cheaper to write off fraud than updating everything? Probably some actuary sweating the day the scale tips the other direction.
It's incredible how lax the rules are for how verified the CC information needs to be for a transaction to clear. There was a HN article about it not that long ago, w.r.t. dealing with Stripe or one of the other big processors. Stuff like the CVV can be wrong, the issued name can vary by some heuristic, etc.
I’m confused. You’re under the impression people don’t use stolen cards face to face? The sibling commented about AC service being charged to his stolen card. A credit card is easier to use than a bad check. I’ve never seen anyone take a check without ID.
Yeah, apparently people do that. I write "ASK FOR ID" in the signature area on my credit cards, and have never once been asked for ID, so it's at least been my personal experience that no one really looks at a credit card when handed one. Perhaps it's a totally unique and isolated experience :P
> The average person isn't affected by this type of government surveillance and potential overreach because the average person doesn't buy things that are priced at over 3,000 euros per transaction.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
> Freedom from government surveillance and potential overreach?
With all due respect, the transactions above that rough amount is exactly those I would want the government to keep an eye on, while letting me buy stuff for a few hundreds freely and without having to report it.
There is pretty much no situation whatsoever when someone buys something for more than 3k€ where the absolute requirement to use cash is not linked to some shady reasons.
Like I said to the other poster. I transact often over that amount to purchase old woodworking equipment. The people I work with often do not want to transact electronically for multiple reasons. The tax is paid, it's on the books, but they want cash.
Because a 80/20 rule is much better than having to chose between "everything is controlled" or "nothing is controlled", and that's essentially the two choices we have.
It works just fine in most of europe since a very long time, and frankly people insisting to be paid in cash and then going out of their way to fully declare the taxes and source of the money is even weirded, why not take the easier shortcut.
Of course, maybe it's linked to how strange sending money seems to still be in some circumtances in the US ? Reading about Venmo and the likes is just surprising to me, a 10 minutes SEPA wire is free here, and as good as cash.
Yeah our electronic transfer methods suck. Even between my business and personal accounts, doing a regular bank transfer, it takes several days. Literally faster to withdraw cash and drive it over.
Meanwhile, if you have to do a wire transfer for a large sum of money, and the bank screws it up, they have around 30 minutes to recall it before the wire is permanently completed.
I'm not a european but I do have an example. A few years back I purchased a project car in cash. I don't carry checks, who does anymore? And my bank would have given me grief trying to transfer an amount that large at once. I had tried before and it would trigger their fraud detection and give me headaches. Its good its there but can be a barrier when I'm just trying to buy something. So going to branch and withdrawing the cash was the most convenient option.
I'm in Denmark, and the last car I bought was from a private seller on a Sunday, we met at a coffee shop and settled the (large, cars are expensive here) payment via an instant bank transfer that I initiated from my laptop. The money immediately showed in the seller's account and we transferred the title/registration via a government online service (which is free of charge).
In the US, it’s quite possible your bank may not exist tomorrow. This just happened with two banks here. Plus during natural disasters you won’t be able to load up your laptop to transfer money for groceries, or NFC for that matter. These things still need cash.
No need for people that understand and trust the systems you used. That doesn't mean everyone understands how to do what you said, but they can count cash just fine.
This seems a US centric problem. No one in Europe has carried checks since the 90s and large bank transactions are really a non issue as they resolve within a banking day and for a small fee you can usually do real time transfers too.
Or for free. One of the reasons Venmo and similar do well in the US but have almost no equivalent (and certainly not at scale) in the UK, for example, is that free, near instant transfer of cash from retail (i.e. ordinary people) bank accounts has been free for years. If I need to pay someone, I need their bank account number and their bank identifying number, and that's it; the money will be in their bank within sixty seconds, with no fee. I've told people mine so often to get paid that I've accidentally memorised it.
Even some people who historically took cash (such as household tradesmen) now often simply have the money transferred instantly on the doorstep, rather than have to carry cash around in their pockets all day. I imagine a similar story in much of the rest of Europe.
Idk about europe, but as an American I would have used a money order for this. Unless I'm buying up a friends junker. Gotten grief lately from local DMV when we don't have a paper trail for buying up cars out of state when it comes time to get them registered here. But if I'm buying locally it's easier to just call up a Notary friend and stamp a printed bill of sale while we hand over cash.
In NL, all transactions above 10k are monitored and tracked, if you want to collect larger than x-k from your bank in cash it is monitored and tracked (depends on the bank, usually less than 3k). Depositing large cash transactions is monitored as well. If you are staying within the law there is no real way to get around it since hardly any legal employer will pay you in cash.
If the banks actually track it or not is another question. Every now and then a report comes out mentioning a banks failure to do so.
To be clear, the ~10k USD cash limit before reporting is standard in all highly advanced countries for global money laundering agreements. You see these same restrictions when travelling internationally.
In the US banking system, that's called structuring. Which means that transactions of $10,000 or more are legally suspicious, and transactions under $10,000 are legally suspicious.
Logicians, please simplify the previous statement.
You are incorrect: "Transactions under $10k" are not legally suspicious, but rather, multiple transactions that are very large but under $10k but when added together are more than $10k. It's not that easy to end up under scrutiny for structuring unless you're running a cash heavy business without declaring it. Moreover, 99% of the time, the "scrutiny" is "fill out this paperwork"
I stand by my statement. Are banks required to scrutinize $10K+ transactions? Yes. Are banks required to scrutinize <$10K transactions to determine whether they're really $10K+ transactions? Yes.
Compare: in the US, you can be detained for driving over the speed limit. You can also be detained for driving under the speed limit, if police believe either that your slow speed is dangerous, or that you are driving slowly to avoid being detained. In all but the most egregious cases of abuse, a driver will have little reason to complain that they shouldn't have been pulled over.
You’ve got it backwards. You need a reason to restrict freedom, not to improve it. So, the questions are which problem is this solving, is there any other way to solve it, and is it worth it. In most places, this is done without real discussion and people don’t care because they “don’t use cash”. “Lol terrorism” is not the most convincing argument.
And you clearly want to carry 3000+ EUR in your pocket than paying by card? Europe is safe, but I will definitely not walk around with that much cash on my person.
> And you clearly want to carry 3000+ EUR in your pocket than paying by card? Europe is safe, but I will definitely not walk around with that much cash on my person.
I'd also rather pay the Macbook by card due to practicality, but I don't understand your second sentence. Why would you walk around with a Macbook worth 3k but not with 3k in cash? Nobody knows that you have 3k in cash with you, whereas everybody can see you walking out of the Apple Store with the Macbook.
You're arguing that it should be illegal for him just because you don't personally want to do it? We wouldn't be allowed to do very many things if "I don't personally want to do that today" was a good reason to outlaw something.
It's my choice, my money, and I want to keep my freedom to engage in legal business with my property without going through an intermediate party. This is an arbitrary restriction that gives way more power to the government than it provides safety for the individual.
Well yeah, why not? I’ve been mugged in the day exactly zero times (and don’t carry cash in night clubs, where I did get mugged once). It’s not exactly conspicuous, there is no way to know what’s in your bag or wallet.
I don’t do it often; last time was when I moved to the UK without a British bank account and did not want to pay any transfer fees, which are quite expensive for larger sums (I had to carry enough to live one month and pay a first month’s rent before getting my first pay check). Another one was when I had to buy a computer after having reach the 7-days ceiling in my debit card (now you can increase it on the bank’s app; it used to be more complicated).
It's not a problem. I regularly pay for four-figure items in cash. Lots of places offer cash discounts at that price point (no CC fees or risk of chargeback). I paid a doctor $5000 in cash once.
The first time, it feels a little odd, but then you realize that nobody at the bank bats an eye at you withdrawing a few grand, and $3k in 100s is about the size of a phone in your pocket.
Since nobody carries cash, nobody thinks that other people are carrying cash, so it doesn't make you a target. And I'm not anymore likely to lose my wallet with $500 in cash in it than I am my $1000 phone.
Well this works well until it doesn’t. My elderly father doesn’t carry cash, only card, but yet it would look like he has a large wad of cash in his front pocket. It is in fact a legally concealed handgun however.
And anything that doesn’t look like a wallet probably won’t trigger a response. You would be safer to just wad up money and shove it in your pocket than to carry it around in a wallet.
This post is hysterical. Where and why did you pay a doctor 5k (I assume USD/EUR)? Any one from a highly advanced democracy is laughing to themself about paying so much for medical care. I can only assume US or expat in undeveloped country.
Speculating and then attacking where an individual comes from instead of engaging in the actual conversation is an interesting take and seems like you may have the wrong tab open (HN, not Reddit). There is a word for this. It's called Xenophobia.
I've been on this site for a long time, and as far as I can recall this isn't accepted.
Europe is not America, and they generally provide better services to their poor people. Someone else above pointed out a certain country has onramps into banking explicitly for homeless people.
The people I know going around spending cash for large purchases tend to not be people that are struggling. They just prefer using cash. It doesn't get any simpler than using cash.
When I was 20, my bank has a daily limit on what I can spend out of my own account electronically because of reasons that I was told were related to account protection. I do not trust cash transfer apps at all and will never link them to my identity. I like to keep a small target surface.
Why should I not be able to spend my own money how I feel? It's mine.
Used cars, rent, nicer computers, there's all sorts of relatively large purchases that could be reasonably paid in a stack of large bills. Cash has a nice permanence to the transaction, where I as a seller don't need to be too concerned with the purchaser's background, as their proof of payment is the physical payment itself.
Privacy? I don't necessarily want my bank and/or the state to know that I blew up 3k€ on PrettyOlgaBlueEyes in a night of loneliness, or that my hobby is to buy & restore old cars, or whatever else.
because my transaction is a legitimate one until proven otherwise (innocent until proven guilty principle), and i have the right to buy something without letting my bank know what or where i bough it.
I could or could not disclose that payment to my government depending on the laws and if there are fiscal benefits, it is my choice.
I should not be forced to use a middle man for those payments, even if this means i am open to be scammed or victim of fraud.
now, as other mentioned, what are some good reasons to FORCE ONLY electronic payments above 3000€ ?
I would flip the script and say why is it a good idea to let the government have that much influence in your life without probable cause and a warrant to know what your financial transactions are?
Why would you not accept legal tender over a certain amount? This isn't credit, it's physical money the government created. It should never be outlawed
I just recently bought a car for around 4000€ in cash. I even went to a ATM to withdraw money first.
Cash is, after all, the only instant and feeless transaction method. Why would I want to pay % fee or wait up to several days for a transaction like that?
Imagine I bought the car on Friday afternoon. The seller would get the money earliest on Monday. Why would the seller simply trust me? So how would I buy a car on a Friday afternoon otherwise?
> Cash is, after all, the only instant and feeless transaction method.
Bank transfers in the EU are instant, and there are no fees for personal accounts.
> Imagine I bought the car on Friday afternoon. The seller would get the money earliest on Monday.
No, the seller would get the money before they could even blink.
I have accounts at 2 unrelated banks. I have my online banking apps set up that whenever I get a deposit over a certain amount I get a push notification. When I use my online banking app to transfer money from my account at bank A to my account at bank B, I get an alert from bank B’s app to inform me of the money appearing in my account before the app from bank A has even shown me the confirmation screen that the transfer request was received.
Well Switzerland has SEPA but realtime SEPA transactions are usually only available within the same bank. And I havent heard of any bank solving any Sepa transactions on the weekend here
Banks are not obliged to open accounts to everyone. So there are people who can't use banks, even if they want to.
You must accept plenty of agreements between bank and you, and there are only so many banks, so it's very possible for some people to find bank terms to be unacceptable for them.
Right now those people have cash as an alternative. Making it illegal removes some freedom from those people.
because you don’t want the government to be able to delete you from the economy? do you use signal? what’s the difference between strong privacy for your text messages and strong privacy for your financial transactions?
Even when there are limit's its tough to enforce. A better strategy is to remove legal tender above $20. It makes makes hoarding cash a logistical problem for criminals.
If a million dollars in $100 fits in a briefcase, Then it's a suitcase or more for $20 etc. And then banking that money becomes tedious as well.
Anyway, without enforcement it's really just tokenism.
they famously called the 500 euro bills -bin ladens- for how hard they became to secure since all the unofficial transactions where mostly done with those high denomination bills
They seem to be of most use to rich people who want to hide assets from the tax man by carrying the cash across the border to Switzerland. Probably doesn't work as well as it used to anymore though. A few years back I talked to a guy from norther Italy who said most people had a second bank account in Switzerland to hide money from the government.
The libertarian-minded tend to think that this kind of freedom is necessary to prevent government overreach and oppression, but in reality the bulk of the people making large cash transactions are either avoiding taxes (ripping off you, the taxpayer) or participating in organized crime (human trafficking, weapons/drugs/counterfeit black markets, etc).
I would also argue that the only people making cash transactions that large are probably way wealthier than the average person and, again, are looking to launder their money.
Think about it seriously: in what scenario would you choose to use physical cash to make a transaction amounting in the thousands of dollars?
That's so insanely risky. You'd be a walking target. You could lose the money, someone could steal the money, it could be physically damaged.
It even puts you at risk during the transaction: why would the other party sell you the good when the money is right there ready to be robbed from you? There is no recourse because it's all under the table. I can't stop a check or have a paper trail to take to court if you just take my cash.
There is no situation I would be comfortable making a transaction with that much cash (unless I was in so insanely wealthy that this amount of money meant nothing to me).
> There is no situation I would be comfortable making a transaction with that much cash (unless I was in so insanely wealthy that this amount of money meant nothing to me)
That’s fine for you but why does that mean it should be illegal for everyone else?
Specifically the state likes to say "We need access to encryption private keys because of terrorists or to save the kids. If you don't have anything to hide, there's no reason you'd oppose this". [0]
So if a lot of bad people pay for things with big sums of cash, then why would you oppose this limit, unless you're a bad person. Meh.
Like taxes are fair... You have the freelancers and small business struggling badly in my country, yet the goverment spends millions on nonsensical programs.
My uncle used to save 5 cent guilder coins (stuivers in Dutch). I don't know why, maybe he wanted to be a copper Scrooge McDuck it was an obsession of his, always ask people if he could change some money with him. After a while he had many of those plastic drum barrels full of coins in the attic. The problem was that the ceiling under the attic started to visibly bulge, so they decided to bring them to the bank. He said that all the work was worth it to see the expression on the bank tellers face when they rolled those barrels in the bank.
Wow, as someone from the US I always thought the $1 notes were far superior to the equivalent coins in other countries. I dislike having coins in my pocket, but already have a note or 2. Adding a couple more adds negligent space.
You ruin notes if you put them in your pocket. Coins you can just drop in the coin pocket on jeans. I wish the 1USD coin was more than a legal tender collector item. Maybe up to 2USD would be nice.
Maybe some notes, but $1 bills are pretty durable. And most places will take them in nearly any condition, although, I did have a merchant in Ocean City, NJ recently that wouldn't take a $1 with a small tear, and I hear merchants overseas do want pristine USD.
More andecdotes but I've had british pound coins that were minted in the early 60's still in passable condition; nearly every dollar bill I've had in the US has been grimy and darkened and felt like it was three seconds from falling apart.
(ok, hyperbole, but I've had a few like that)
The US note was printed after 2001, that's a considerable time difference.
Though your $20 notes are usually in excellent condition for some reason compared to the british equivalent.
> nearly every dollar bill I've had in the US has been grimy and darkened and felt like it was three seconds from falling apart.
Yeah, that's how they are, but feeling like they're going to fall apart and actually falling appart are two different things.
> Though your $20 notes are usually in excellent condition for some reason compared to the british equivalent.
$20 bills tend to get picked up at the bank, spent at a merchant, and deposited at a bank. Banks will send worn notes to be retired. Many businesses don't take bills larger than $20, so don't use $20s to make change. It's uncommon to pay vendors and employees in cash, so merchants end up with a surplus of $20s that need to be deposited.
$1 bills are used in change, so they tend to get exchanged frequently. Few consumers will deal with $1s at a bank, and many businesses won't ever deposit them, but may need to make withdrawls in $1s so they can make change. They tend to pass through many hands before they get back to a bank where their condition can be checked.
I was recently in El Salvador, which uses the USD as an official currency (alongside BTC lol). Despite using dollars, the $1 coins are used instead of notes almost exclusively for that denomination (mostly presidential dollars and some silver Susan B Anthony dollars). I was curious and did a bit of research, apparently the reason is that because day-to-day transactions are done almost entirely in small amounts of cash the paper notes have a very short lifespan (apparently <1yr) there, while coins will last decades.
Yeah, that makes sense. Coins are clearly more durable, and for denominations that are handled frequently in places without access to federal reserve replacement, durability wins over preference / aggregate weight and volume.
In mainland US, preference for paper $1s isn't unduly burdensome. As a merchant, deposit the worst of the $1s and use the rest as change, no big deal. As a consumer, if someone doesn't take your grimy, half torn $1, try it a couple more places and then take it to a bank (perhaps even your bank). But it's unsurprising that doesn't really work for El Salvador.
Definitely not the only one, an entire country decided that durability is important for the $1 denomination, I'll copy what I posted above:
I was recently in El Salvador, which uses the USD as an official currency (alongside BTC lol). Despite using dollars, the $1 coins are used instead of notes almost exclusively for that denomination (mostly presidential dollars and some silver Susan B Anthony dollars). I was curious and did a bit of research, apparently the reason is that because day-to-day transactions are done almost entirely in small amounts of cash the paper notes have a very short lifespan (apparently <1yr) there, while coins will last decades.
YMMV. I can slip a few bills in with my credit cards. If I can't really just ignore coins like I generally do in the US (not that I use much cash in the US at this point), I need some separate pouch to carry them. I dislike ~$1+ coins because you pretty much have to use them if you're paying and getting change in cash.
$1 coins have flopped whenever they've been tried in more or less living memory in the US.
In the US, a lot of places won't readily (or at all) take $100 bills. The US is sort of in bill and coinage denomination stasis (denominations are essentially the same as they were over 50 years ago) though it's probably largely academic at this point given that many people basically don't use cash.
Fully agreed about $100 bills - even $50 bills are often rejected at places with lots of counterfeiting risk and/or mostly small purchases.
Many people in the US basically don’t use cash, quite true - but in some parts of the country like NYC, many restaurants and convenience stores are cash-only or only accept cards with a higher price or a minimum purchase amount. So cash is still very commonly carried in NYC and similar cities. The pandemic made it rarer than before for cards not to be accepted at all, but it still happens, as do minimums and price differences.
In case you’re wondering about legality: the policies I describe above can be legal or illegal depending on the specifics, but both legal and illegal versions of them are commonly seen in practice.
Minimums used to be forbidden by many merchant agreements, but due to the federal Dodd-Frank Act from 2010, merchants can set credit card minimums up to no more than $10, as long as they set the same minimum for all types of credit cards they accept. This applies nationwide including NYC. Higher minimums are indeed still illegal, though that doesn’t mean you won’t still see them sometimes.
This provision of the Dodd-Frank Act does not cover debit cards, and I believe merchant agreements still prohibit minimums for debit cards. This prohibition is widely violated. I have no idea whether this prohibition is officially applicable to debit cards when they are processed as credit cards (which usually means no PIN for most US cards) - I’ve heard people say it’s not - but it definitely covers debit cards when they are processed as debit cards (which again for most US cards is always the case if a PIN is input).
As for NY’s current rules on price differences for credit cards vs cash and debit cards vs cash and the required disclosures, those are a bit complex, so I’ll just link an official explanation here:
But the TL;DR is, yes different pricing is legal if worded and disclosed correctly. To nobody’s surprise, illegal implementations remain common as well.
Maybe it's illegal or maybe it's against the store's merchant card agreement. In any case, in practice, retailers/restaurants/etc. can do pretty much whatever they want and probably get away with it so long as it's not too egregious.
The rules in Spain apply for business transactions, i.e.: Business <-> Business and Individual <-> Business, NOT between individuals. The funny thing about it is that in the hypothetical case you would be caught, whichever party reports it first, before getting caught, would not be penalised.
You cannot enter any EU state with more than the equivalent of 10,000 Euro cash unless you declare the amount at the point of entrance.
If border controls finds you with more than 10,000 Euro you will have to pay a fine.
Then you can walk with any amount of money, but when you pay for something there is a limit (500 in Greece, 1,000 in Spain, 5,000 in Italy (was 2,000 in 2022), no limits in Germany, etc.) to any single payment in cash.
And there is usually a provision prohibiting "artificial fractioning" of payment, i.e. in theory if you buy something worth 1,200 and the limit is 1,000 you cannot pay that with two invoices/receipts 600 Euro each.
> And there is usually a provision prohibiting "artificial fractioning" of payment, i.e. in theory if you buy something worth 1,200 and the limit is 1,000 you cannot pay that with two invoices/receipts 600 Euro each.
Lawnmower, motorcycle, four wheeler, tractor, excavator, specialty tools, toolboxes, computers, phones, safes, firearms are some big ticket things I and those around me have paid for in cash, all used.
I am curious about the status of legal tender in such regions.
If someone were to owe a business a debt above €5,000, does the fact that they legally cannot accept payment in cash mean that they could legally refuse all proffered forms of payment ("sorry, we don't accept X"), and get that person declared a bad debtor for failure to pay?
The incredibly important thing about legal tender in the form of cash is that, if it is refused as a means of payment, the debt is declared void. It effectively cannot be refused.
Wow Greece has a limit of 500 euro, but: "There is no cash limit for car purchases"
wth?
EDIT:
Also this something that I didn't know about the UK
> With regard to the change, there are unlimited payments of £ 5, £ 2 and £ 1. Coins with a face value of 50p, 25p and 20p can pay amounts up to £ 10, with 10p and 5p up to £ 5 and with 2p and 1p up to 20p.
The most corrupt countries tend to have the worst limits. In greece for example real estate sellers will try to officially declare a price much lower than the real one to the taxman, taking the rest in cash under the table. That's why there are government-appraised, official "objective" prices according to which real estate is taxed
Also common for car purchases. Put lower amount on documents to pay less tax.
Which often causes problem when the cars is defective and seller goes "sure, I will pay you back in full, the amount that is on documents". And buyer got no recourse for that.
Because the decision as to whether to engage in a transaction with any particular customer is generally (short certain types of outright bigotry like "no Blacks or Irish") entirely up to the seller, it generally doesn't matter.
Suppose I try to pay for this £12 crate of Coke cans with twenty four 50 pence pieces. The rule you quoted says that won't work, but it totally will in most cases especially at larger stores or if it's obvious I don't have any other money.
On the other hand suppose I try to buy five £1 packs of Harribo bear candy with a hundred five pence pieces from the grumpy corner store guy who knows perfectly well I have a credit card. He's going to tell me to fuck off, and perhaps rightly so.
That's because a lot of used car sales p2p, and in cash. Reason being, normal people usually do not have terminals to pay by card (which has limits as well), and doing a wire transfer is somewhat risky. Either because the seller is left without money nor a car if the wire transfer is stopped by the buyer, or the buyer is left without a car and money, if the wire transfer goes through but zhe car doesn't show up. Sure, that can be resolved, but it is a major pain. Exchanging cash for keys and papers so is saver for everyone involved. And depending om zhe car, the amoints can he pretty high.
Those UK limits are for what is considered legal tender—that is, if someone has offered you 20 pennies to settle a 20p debt, you can't sue them for non-payment, but if they offered you 200 pennies to settle a £2 debt then you could.
Cash isn't great, but some people don't use online banking - and in a private sale, only a fool would hand over their car keys to a stranger in exchange for a cheque.
(Of course, this was a much bigger issue 15 years ago - these days we have faster payments, and the vast majority of people can make payments from their phone.)
It's not trivially easy to do large payments to another random individual in the US via bank transfers.
The check issue is solved by concluding the transaction at the buyer's bank. A cashier's check can be issued by that bank to the seller. Since that check is backed up by the bank's own accounts, not subject to the buyer's whims (e.g., they can't stop payment, and the bank will have confirmed that buyer has that amount in their account and debit it immediately), it's as good as cash (well, unless the bank itself is unsound) but safer to carry around.
>Cash isn't great, but some people don't use online banking
This is the US version of the events. I don't know all EU member states in detail, but I can't think of one where it's possible to receive salary/pension in cash.
Cheques have not been a thing for 20y+, I wonder if they are still issued.
It's always interesting to watch any EU-specific topic come up on HN and see people on one end of the EU assume that their lives, local laws, and customs are exactly the same as the lives, local laws, and customs on the other end of the EU. And then when a deviation comes up, they assume it's an American thing.
It seems like people in the EU should explore their neighboring countries more. Or at least stop assuming that the EU is one homogenous society modeled after their own personal experiences.
Like mentioned I have not seen any cheques in use for 20 or so years. I have not seen 'personal' cheque books since the Euro has been introduced.
>Or at least stop assuming that the EU is one homogenous society modeled after their own personal experiences.
How was the assuming - "I don't know all EU member states in detail". I have lived (as in years) in several EU member states. Visited (travel) across most of them too.
My wife, currently in southern France, was given a check last week, and tells me she's glad that she brought cash with her.
As I stated, your experiences are not the only experiences. And again, you just assumed that any deviation from your expectations makes it an American aberration. This is simply not true, and speaks to your limited experience and biases.
By far the most common method of receiving income from an employer in the US is direct deposit. For people who refuse, the fallback position is typically a card (essentially a refillable gift card).
Checks still do exist, but primarily for one-off payments where the payer and payee don't have much of a relationship.
totally different set of criminals, also bank accounts are generally much, much harder to take over. The money is easy to track, and it can be reimbursed.
Exactly this. Currency transaction reports are mandatory for any individual transactions > $10,000. This limit $10K was established in 1970 (Bank Secrecy Act). After 50 years, $10,000 of 1970 should have been at least $50K of 2023. Politicians and their crony bureaucrats never want to index these limits with inflation.
Here's another one – the USD $100 note was introduced in 1914. If currency denominations were to keep up with inflation, the Fed would be printing $3000 bills today.
In Canada, and I think the US we cannot cross the border with > 10k in cash (edit: more if you declare it as mentioned below). The law has been there for as long as I can remember, be I sure purchasing power of 10k has gone down by at least a factor of 4-10 over the life of the law. All regulation type laws need sunset clauses and all dollar amounts should be inflation linked. The government shouldn't be able to scam more powers like this.
To be honest, just because you can (legally), doesn't mean you should (do it). Carrying cash in the US is dangerous, and not just because of regular street thugs.
They do not need to prove anything to seize your money. Stealing from people carrying too much cash on them has become a national past time of the police in the US. There are police departments that rely on this to provide them with funding :
> In some Texas counties, forfeitures fund nearly 40% of police budgets.53 The Cook County, Illinois state’s attorney’s office’s 2016 budget anticipated $4.96 million in forfeiture revenues, which it earmarked to pay forty-one full-time employees’ salaries and benefits.54 But forfeiture proceeds are not just used for policing activities; with little accountability, law enforcement officials have also spent them on extravagancies like expensive dinners, parties, and personal expenses.55
> As a result, the decision to pursue a forfeiture is often governed not by justice, but by “department wish lists.”56 Police civil forfeiture trainings include instruction on “maximizing profits, defeating the objections of so-called ‘innocent owners’ . . . , and keeping the proceeds in the hands of law enforcment.
> And over time, across all 50 states and the federal government, those small sums add up: between 2000 and 2019, according to IJ’s calculations, authorities seized roughly $69 billion from people, most of whom were not even charged with a crime.
All it takes is "mmh, this guy has suspicious cash, and we need some funding, let's steal it and say it must have come from drug deals, while not actually charging the owner with any crime".
Offtopic: I'm baffled that this kind of open robbery is completely legal and there's. Practically nothing that can be done to recover your money. This among other crazy "normal" things in US make me extremely wary of even visiting.
I believe above 10k, you're just required to have a source for the 10k. One of my buddies in college brought his entire school tuition in a suitcase over when he started school and it caused a bit of a shit show because he had to go back home and get proof to release the money or something like that. He came from a wealthy family so he had never ran into that before.
> The United States Mint nevertheless acknowledges the concerns raised by the commenters. Therefore, the exception provided for in the current regulation at section 82.2(a)(2) has been amended to reasonably accommodate these concerns by allowing exportation of 5-cent and one-cent coins having an aggregate face value of up to $25 when it is clear that the purpose for exporting such coins is for legitimate personal numismatic, amusement, or recreational use.
I have heard of someone (on a talk show) crossing over with a large amount of gold coins. Since the coins (the Gold Loonie) has a nominal face value of something like 200 CAD - he just told the customs that he was bringing over the nominal face value of the coins. This only works with coins not rounds, as rounds are not legal tender and maybe that is why rounds trade at a discount to coins?
I'm virtually certain that is illegal. Usually the rules are about currency or negotiable instruments or whatever and gold would count. Deceiving custom officials is not the same as legally bringing something across the border.
Do you consider sending them to another person cashing them in? I'm referring to bob's stablecoin -> bob's fiat -> alice's payment, and suggesting that their goal is bob's stablecoin -> alice's stablecoin, and avoiding the stablecoin->fiat (cashing in) phase entirely.
It would probably be quite abysmal, considering the deflationary nature of most cryptocurrencies. Which stablecoin provider do you trust to secure your wealth at this point? After the downfall of FTX, Tether, Luna, Celsius, etc., who in the space can anyone trust? Which is the real sleight of hand of the entire "trustless" Crypto ecosystem...
> After the downfall of FTX, Tether, Luna, Celsius, etc., who in the space can anyone trust?
You're talking about centralized grifting as your examples and I'm glad they failed (well, technically Tether hasn't failed, yet).
If you are 'trusting' those companies... that is the problem. The point is that you shouldn't have to trust those companies, or the government, with your money.
The entire thread is about people not being able to go across borders with x amount of cash without declaring it. I could walk across a border with 100k in stablecoins and never declare it, and then have immediate access to those funds like I would cash. My point is to show the absurdity of these kinds of laws.
Not commenting on the absurdity, but (untraceable) physical cash is what's forbidden. And governments are going after anonymous asset ownership systems like crypto for the same reason. They want control, and visibility into monetary movemnts.
How is USDC a scam? Or how about DAI? Also, when I say stablecoins, I am also referring to CBDC's. Anyways, not everyone has a bank account (your viewpoint is very Western centric) and having to withdraw cash in a foreign country is just poor UX in the digital age.
And what about refugees fleeing war, like Ukrainians in 2022. There were many many cases where Ukrainians had zero access to their banks while in Poland. Having 12 words, or a set of 5 trusted guardians would be a much better way of securing your wealth than trusting some third party custodian in a city under siege.
If you don't declare it, it's guaranteed to be confiscated until you prove a legitimate purpose for the > $10,000.
Federal authorities generally have a higher standard of behavior than local or state police, although obviously not in every instance. If you try to cross the border with $500,000 declared, they may have some questions for you.
I was under the impression if you don’t declare it then there is no legal burden on the government to return it to you, whether you have a reasonable explanation or not. Whereas if you declare it and have a reasonable story/sufficient paperwork they can’t/shouldn’t take it.
The point being that in cases where there is no funny business (at least in your opinion), you are strictly better off declaring it than taking your chances on not doing so.
>Whereas if you declare it and have a reasonable story/sufficient paperwork they can’t/shouldn’t take it.
The law in the US is that, the police can take anything they want from you, with zero judicial process needed, slap it into their department's slush fund, buy whatever toys they want, or even as someone posted above, MAKE IT PART OF THEIR YEARLY BUDGET PROCESS TO "EXPECT" MILLIONS IN STOLEN MONEY, and unless you can AFFIRMATIVELY PROVE in a court of law that you obtained the property through zero criminal or near criminal activity, you will never get it back
Yes but no. Yes you can enter carrying as much cash, but no you cannot freely enter with over $10k in cash, they need to be reporter to the US Custom and Border Protection before entering the country https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-195?language=en_US
Does “freely enter” have a legal definition? Because you are “free to enter” but need to declare. Just like you are “free to enter” but need to declare if you have an orange you purchased from the States making a return journey back into the States.
'complete' doesn't mean 'enter the amount of change in your pocket, and small amount of holiday spending money rolled up in your socks' though. GP's right that you only have to declare certain things, a completed form can be 'nothing to declare', which obviously doesn't mean 'I am entering nude with no belongings'.
Cash payments over (few) thousands are not permitted in the most/many EU member state already. NL are just catching the train. Greece has it as low as 500 Euro.
The laws are there due to anti-money laundering. Since virtually no cash income (in those country) is viable - think salaries, etc., it's not hard to be followed. All retail sales need a valid VAT receipt, all of those receipts have source of the payment as well. Wholesale tends to be never in cash (requires tax administration approval), the laws might differ, of course - however that's a common framework.
Works with technology as well, the speed limits in your neighborhood were probably set when cars had drum brakes and poor visibility.
Speed limits are far more complicated than that.
They're used to reduce noise, create gaps in traffic so people can make left turns, give pedestrians time to cross a street, encourage people to see nearby businesses, and a hundred other reasons.
I've read a number of traffic studies in the last few decades. Some of them are fascinating in their technical depth.
The cars have adapted to hit people better though, at least for a given size of car. See Euro NCAP pedestrian test. Cars have softer front ends, and they even pop up on impact to give a softer landing for the pedestrian. Also, automatic emergency braking systems.
Automatic brakes, driver warning systems, better medicine to treat you if you do get hit. Less alcoholism and drunk driving. Radial tires, led headlamps, automatic windshield wipers, daytime running lights, ABS, airbags, hell I think a lot of cars didn't even have seatbelts standard back when some of these were set.
Nah, physics didn't change in the years since, and neither has human reaction time, both things that have a much more significant impact on road safety than modern rubber or brakes.
Then they can monitor all transactions and turn off purchases based on what they want the population to buy. Too much meat for a week, sorry can’t buy more until next week. “But I worked for this money” too bad.
It’s effectively “the company store”, except government (“by the people and for the people” - ie your neighbors) dictating what you buy. They just happen to also invest in the companies they direct you to.
They can already do that by rationing meat, like they did in WW2. Require that you have the correct stamps for buying what you want. Or probably introduce some horrible mobile app for it. No need to outlaw cash for that.
>It’s effectively “the company store”, except government (“by the people and for the people” - ie your neighbors) dictating what you buy.
You act like there isn't a MASSIVE distinction between a private business's CEO deciding what his employees should be able to do and an entire society democratically choosing what they want to be allowed.
Oh please. This is entirely about making things fair by cutting down on people, cheating the tax code. As much as people hate taxes, they are essential for a society to function… it is essentially your way of buying into the privilege of living in a nice society.
It's funny, because cash transactions are definitely more common among poorer people. Also, using (even more) imaginary money benefits banks, ultra wealthy, and governments not regular people. Even among the criminals laundering money, the influential and wealthy ones (i.e, the ones these laws should stop) will have little problem adapting. The influence
these types of laws stop is that of regular citizens.
I am 100% certain that you can evade taxes, and do crime without cash. Even movies have criminals do wire transfers. It is hard to have, say, negative interest rates though.
And movies are famously accurate portrayals of things right?
It's extremely difficult to do lot's of profitable crime without cash. When the IRS sees large transactions routinely coming in, they're going to ask WTF you do for a living, and eventually want some evidence of that. Forensic accounting is VERY powerful.
Very sad news. Digital faschism is coming. I always withdraw money and use cash to pay wherever possible. I used to do the opposite throughout mthe most of my life until I understood what's that all about and what are we coming to. Coincidentally or not I have switched soon after watching the Black Mirror TV show :-) (I wouldn't say it was the only and direct influence - I thought about this subject before and after watching it but it impressed me). Fun fact: the very Netherlands have recently filmed another nice TV show about this (Arcadia). I always viewed the Netherlands as arguably the best nation in the world (I am not Dutch myself), sad to see they are going this way.
No, just watched all of them and took time to digest. By the way I would assume the very first episode probably is or was the most misunderstood but now I understand: attacks like depicted there are going to be 100% automated soon (if not already). Data gets collected, an AI automatically looks for vulnerable servers, steals the data, builds a victim profile, calls them from whatever a phone number (this has always been easy) with whatever a voice, tells them whatever optimal to manipulate them into whatever thing optimal to achieve a desired outcome (make them pay money, disclose a secret about someone or perform an act which will leads to desired impact on the society/economy).
At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. For cash purchases above € 10,000, the seller must conduct a customer due diligence. But not all sellers accept cash. The cabinet is working on a bill to ban cash payments from € 3,000.
## Pay for purchases in cash
At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. It doesn't matter how high the amount is. A seller can decide not to accept cash above a certain amount. Or at all [no cash to be accepted](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/geldzaken/vraag-en-...).
## Customer research for purchases above € 10,000
Do you make a purchase that costs more than € 10,000 and do you pay in cash? Then the seller must conduct a [client investigation](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/financiele-sector/a...). This check is mandatory to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
## Bill on cash payments up to € 3,000
There is a [legislative proposal in the making to prohibit cash payments from € 3,000](https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/wetsvoorstellen/deta...). This applies to all buyers and sellers of goods. When the new law comes into effect, you may no longer pay for purchases from € 3,000 in cash.
I'm very much a fan of choice here. I haven't personally used cash more than twice in the last 3 years, I love the convenience of Apple/Google Pay, but cash clearly still needs to exist
I have found when I use cash I don't overspend as often. So I looked it up and this is a known expectation of the banking industry. So I converted to cash as much as I can and my finances are much better.
The internal argument is that it is not convenient for me to need to work only with cash. That is true it is less convenient but when I sacrifice due diligence for convenience then it turns out long term cash is more convenient.
Very true. There's a small segment in the netherlands who are doing just that, with the slogan "betaal bewust contant" (~pay cash consciously/purposefully), e.g. they go out of their way to pay cash at supermarkets even when there is only 1 cash register that allows it and all others are cashless. As I understand a similar movement exists in germany and is much more popular there (I guess due to their history with totalitarianism and persecution).
Cash is weird because in theory it's a simple way to conduct a purchase but increasingly the coins become lost in the mix. I'm in the U.S., if someone hands me a few pennies/dimes as change they have effectively given me metallic trash for me to hold. I have a digital bank, so no way to deposit coins. I'm not going to carry coins around with me like I do whole bills. I'm essentially left with the option of taking them to a "coinstar" machine which will give me just a portion of what they are worth and to make that worth it I have to save up all my coins for multiple years since I get so few of them.
I haven't been to a Coinstar in ages even though I have a big bucket to cash in. (Basically on rare times I get coins I just toss them in when I get home.) As I recall, you can often get gift cards (e.g. Amazon) for the full value. I should look next time I'm in the grocery store.
Of course it needs to exist, but at the same time using it for huge numbers like 3000+ euros is in practice almost only done by criminals. It's a good balance imo.
You can easily spend 3k on a bike, motorcycle, car, a few hookers, high end restaurant with friends, and many other things. You're just regurgitating pro surveillance propaganda.
I've owned seven vehicles in my lifetime. Five of them were paid for with cash transactions greater than $3,000. It's quite common for private sellers to prefer cash.
My bank has 27 offices left in the entire Netherlands, and I don't think many of them take cash. I wouldn't even know how to get 3000 euro in cash into my bank account these days.
Otherwise known as "Your society has actually advanced the payments and banking industries beyond the 60s that the US is perpetually stuck in"
People don't use cash because there are better options that better meet their needs. Most people's needs don't include "the government can't know I'm buying this"
How is that argument different from banning Signal? eg: People don't use end-to-end encrypted messaging because there are better options that better meet their needs. Most people's needs don't include "the government can't know I'm saying this".
Is there really no monetary exchange you've made in your life that, if your government knew about, could get you into trouble? And are you so confident in the future of your government that you're willing to give them that power? I'm not.
The very worth watching Milton Friedman PBS series about the merits of free markets was called “Freedom to Choose” for a good reason. For such markets to function you must be free to choose what you do to earn money and free to choose on what goods and services you wish to spend it on. Much of the series is arguing about what happens when governments attempt to control this dynamic leading to the exact opposite of the stated objectives.
But really who wants to live in a system where you are so clearly funnelled from what it is you do every day to what it is you consume?
Knowing that every transaction you ever make is centrally recorded for later review will absolutely impinge on the freedom of individuals to make those transactions, legality of them at the time being absolutely independent of their potential interest to subsequent inspection.
Frustrating to see more laws like this that can readily throw a wrench in the day to day lives of regular working people, when money laundering and tax evasion at a scale multiple orders of magnitude larger than this is so shamelessly visible in the form of nine-figure real estate transactions, art auctions, and Caymans-based shell corporations.
€3k today is a price of an expensive laptop or an expensive bicycle (e.g. a bakfiets). €3k in ten years will be the price of a normal laptop or a normal bicycle.
How not being able to buy a laptop or a bicycle without asking permission from third parties is a good thing?
The point isn't that nothing costs €3k, but that regular working people rarely have €3k physical cash on hand. Money goes into their bank accounts via direct deposit and they spend it digitally.
In my opinion it's not unthinkable that an older person, someone without a bank account, or someone who works odd-jobs, might save cash in a drawer (regardless of whether that's advisable) for a long time for a larger purchase, like a used car bought in-person directly from someone else. Should we ban that?
Is it possible to have no bank account in the Netherlands? Don't you need one to pay taxes? (I think it's a right to have one and banks must offer a free option.)
How does one launder money with a real estate or art transaction?
Say I've sold a great amount of cocaine and now have 5 million euro in banknotes sitting in my safe at home. How do I launder this money and make it 'legitimate' using those methods?
Yep, an example of this was how people on SSI disability were restricted from not having more than 2k worth of assets in the 1980s, and it hasn't been updated since. Good luck escaping that poverty trap.
The Wwft applies to anyone involved in cash flows or the purchase and sale of (expensive) goods. For example: banks; estate agents; notaries; tax advisers; lawyers; people who mediate in the purchase and sale of, for example, vehicles, art objects and jewellery.
So one-off transactions (you sell some personal item and accept cash) are probably exempt from the due diligence check.
Because they can't track it. Without total control of every aspect of your life they can't make sure you're a Good Person (TM). What if we let the Bad Guys (R) do whatever they want? Won't you think of the children? You wouldn't want children hurt would you? The irony of all this is the people that want sex workers, minorities, and other marginalized communities to live without fear also vote for these policies to keep their Bad Guy (R) under their thumb.
The maximum limit for cash payments in Italy is 1000€, so 3k would still be a lot.
Why would someone need to pay for 10k in cash? Where does that cash come from? 60% of the times, it's money laundering every time.
edit: I suppose since I'm in EU and I'm only 30 I'm "used" to the 1k limit, while non-EU (or specifically USA) people might be grabbing their pitchforks.
The answer to this is very simple: none of your business.
I take strong issue with the word "need." Why do you need that car? That television? That four bedroom house? Why do you need that bow and arrow? For sport, you say? Why not play some ball game instead? Why do you need a chess set when you can play digitally online without killing a tree? Why do you need those fancy clothes? Why does your family need that Disney World vacation?
Let's limit your life choices to what someone else decides that you "need" and then ask if life is still worth living.
The fact is that freedom and liberty comes with it the ability to not have to explain or justify our life choices to others. Will bad people abuse it and do things you don't like? Yeah. That's the risk that comes with it and we have a legal system to identify and deal with those bad actors. A legal system that ought to exist to serve and promote liberty for the innocent, rather than eliminating it and destroying it for everyone out of fear and suspicion that some people might be up to no good some of the time.
So unless there is evidence of wrong-doing, it really is no one's business who they associate with, who they trade with, what they trade, how much they trade and why. And "need" has absolutely no relevance. "Because I want to" ought to be good enough.
It’s absolutely wild to see people making comments like the one you replied to. Are people so eager to have Daddy Government monitoring their every move, deciding how they’re allowed to spend their money? Europeans seem to have Stockholm Syndrome, a fetish for authoritarianism of their preferred flavor.
It feels like the entire continent is one big HOA, deciding what color you can paint your house, or what flowers you can plant outside, to “preserve congruency in the neighborhood”.
It’s honestly a bit concerning seeing how pacified and apathetic people become about government overreach when it doesn’t affect them directly (yet).
> Europeans seem to have Stockholm Syndrome, a fetish for authoritarianism of their preferred flavor.
Not all of us! Please trim your paintbrush. Europe comprises dozens of countries, with hundreds of millions of people.
My personal divorce from "banking with will-you-think-of-the-children-and-oh-all-the-nasty-criminals" here in CZ happened when I went to withdraw ~14k USD in cash. My Fio bank, that I've been with for 10+ years, asked me, "what do you need the money for?"
After collecting my jaw from the floor my answer was of course "none of your business". But the clerk claimed to be "just following the law" (maybe true, I wouldn't know on the spot), that they cannot give me my money without a valid reason.
So I said "I want to withdraw it in order to keep it in cash" (doh!). They made a face and said that's not a valid reason.
So I asked what is a valid reason then? Is there a list that I can see and choose from?
They made a face again and said no, but suggested – trying to be helpful – that most people say "I want to buy a car". Yet I wasn't buying a car and having to lie about this – being advised to lie so a bureaucrat can tick some children-saved-criminals-thwarted checkbox – felt quite surreal. A Kafka-esque exchange. Especially when everybody knows the real money laundering is done by government officials & government-adjacent crooks – in CZ and in every other country under the sun.
In the end I got angry and said I'm about to buy a lot of dog food and refused to budge. They backed down, and I learned a very important lesson about "my" money that day.
It isn't a matter of forcing people to pay taxes, and the fact that so many people in this thread keep going back to the same point is a frightening prospect to me. The US has plenty of our own issues with addressing social issues, but I'd rather the entire country implode due to social issues rather than the government forcibly controlling everyone's purchases and tracking their every movement for the greater good of society.
Americans hate laws like this in the US because we've already sacrificed liberties for security with things like The Patriot Act, and all it got us was our own government spying on it's citizens communication. Expanding the scope of how the government is allowed to forcibly direct or interfere in your life is generally a bad idea, even if the people you support politically make it look sexy and cool.
We keep going back to taxes, because that’s what it’s really about.
People get on the soap box for a passionate gospel about personal freedoms, facism and unalienable liberties - but actually they’re mostly mad that they gotta pay taxes for their nails & gardening now
For me personally, I think the discussion about taxes in this context is a distraction at best. How long before cash is banned altogether, in the name of "making sure everyone pays their taxes"? That doesn't seem like a solution, that seems like oppressing a populace while making them think it was their own idea.
Governments worldwide have been trending towards being more authoritarian, and I see outlawing cash purchases of any amount as an incredibly easy way to begin clamping down on the use of untraceable fiat currency.
I am European and the feeling "that's none of your business" is shared by many people.
An anecdote: The 500 euro bank note was originally created because Germans had the habit of paying in cash, even for large purchases like cars, and they had a DM1,000 bank note (which is about EUR500).
> Will bad people abuse it and do things you don't like? Yeah. That's the risk that comes with it and we have a legal system to identify and deal with those bad actors.
The problem is that things like cryptocurrency are largely designed to circumvent the financial and legal system entirely, which becomes a threat to regulated markets once fraudulent actors become large enough to inevitably become a burden to the legal system (see FTX). The government is spending a lot of money cleaning up the FTX mess and they have an interest in ensuring that it doesn’t happen again.
> The answer to this is very simple: none of your business.
It kinda is. Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally).
That the only argument you can find is « it’s none of your business » doesn’t exactly play against this ruling.
> Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally).
Since when?
Maybe I just want to buy a handsome dog that won a show?
What does it have to do with cash? Ever heard of bank transfers? Spending $10,000 cash sounds ridiculously unsafe for both parties.
> Since when?
Drug deals, money laundering schemes, theft, ransoms, etc.
I fail to see non illegal way to obtain $10,000 cash. And if you can get it legally, just do bank transfers instead
Because it _is_ none of your business. But feel free to review the thread, there are plenty of examples why having large cash reserves and transaction may be helpful for a given situation.
The argument for reporting is equivalent to "you have nothing to hide" and privacy. This is another aspect of privacy.
What if I have a fetish and want to buy some crazy sex swing. I don’t want you to know, I don’t want the bank to know, or the government to know. This is 100% legal and 100% none of your business and I prefer to keep it that way.
Unfortunately that’s what makes it scary, what you’re saying isn’t true. Look up “L3 Processing Data” which is becoming more and more common (which informs the payment provider/bank about exactly what you purchased). AmEx for example is notorious for implementing that.
Furthermore, they don’t need the details. What if I just don’t want the government or bank to even know that I spent $10K at “Smucks Sex Store Co.”?
Anyway, I hope you’re starting to see the importance of privacy and cash. Even if they’re ridiculous and silly to someone else.
Not money, fiat currency. Something without intrinsic value adding nothing of value and resulting ultimately in the ability to control and monitor its usage for inevitably nefarious purposes. It always has been.
For their own personal reasons. Purchasing a business, a vehicle, a property or other real/tangible asset, hush money, avoiding a lawsuit, and so forth.
> Where does that cash come from?
It doesn't matter. Why do you care where people get their currency from? Do you have a rash of mint or bank robberies or something?
> That's a separate problem that allowing overeager regulation of currency utilization enables.
Now it seems like you are resorting to the libertarian fantasizing that used to be so common on news-for-nerds sites.
> Note, I said hush money, not extortion.
Threatening to go public with a story when the other party might feel compelled to pay hush money, is already viewed as extortion.
> Few as litigious as the USA _so far_.
The special litigiousness of the USA is due to a number of longstanding factors including its inherited common-law system that differs from most other developed countries. It is not clear why you would expect other countries to become as litigious anytime soon.
> A better set of questions here: who benefits, and by how much, with regulating currency so tightly?
The general public who can be sure that taxes are being paid fairly and they are receiving the services they should. Again, not all countries are as culturally forgiving of tax evasion as Americans, let alone those places with even less controls over the flow of cash than the USA.
>> That's a separate problem that allowing overeager regulation of currency utilization enables.
> Now it seems like you are resorting to the libertarian fantasizing that used to be so common on news-for-nerds sites.
As I see no reason it is a fantasy, I'll continue "resorting" to the reality that, frankly, the entity able to put me to death legally probably doesn't need to know my reasons and justifications for every action I take, respectfully. If that makes me a left-libertarian, then so be it. Respectfully, sounds like you might have some hangups with discussing points that have overlap in classical liberal philosophies, throwing out legitimate discussion with the baby and bathwater.
>> Note, I said hush money, not extortion.
> Threatening to go public with a story when the other party might feel compelled to pay hush money, is already viewed as extortion.
Payment for private services, like sexual services, are common in Europe and likely preferred to be kept private. I believe you would view this as legalized extortion.Yet, the desire for discretion exists even when the "threat" of information being public isn't necessarily blackmail.
> The general public who can be sure that taxes are being paid fairly and they are receiving the services they should. Again, not all countries are as culturally forgiving of tax evasion as Americans, let alone those places with even less controls over the flow of cash than the USA.
That's a weird way to spell "banks and financial institutions." There are plenty on controls already on the impoverished and middle class. A blunt hammer like this gums up transaction processing and allows for additional regulatory capture by banks and financial institutions.
The country that is the subject of this HN post does not have the death penalty.
> That's a weird way to spell "banks and financial institutions."
’Cause I wasn’t spelling that. Within welfare states, public will to minimize tax evasion is widespread. In Europe steps are already being taken to improve transaction processing and democratize this area of the banking industry, so there isn’t necessarily the “gumming up” of the works and regulatory capture that you assume. If things don’t look so good in your country, I’m afraid that’s your problem to sort out.
And rates of tax evasion are high enough to justify further entrenchment and subsidization of banking institutions?
> The country that is the subject of this HN post does not have the death penalty.
Fine, lifetime imprisonment on trumped up charges. Please don't be disingenuous, coercion is coercion whether the loss of liberty is death or imprisonment.
Perceived ates of tax evasion are high enough to justify further actions to make it harder to avoid tax.
They are definitely perceived high enough.
In Europe salary earners are taxed on the income as they receive it through Pay As You Earn and similar and it is difficult to avoid. The public wants it as difficult for all others to find it as difficult.
Whilst FAANG pay very little tax.
Even in the US Warren Buffet says he pays a lower rate of tax than his secretary.
The basic rule is that tax is progressive and rich people should pay a larger percentage than normal workers.
Of course -- taxes should be progressive. But this doesn't address "rich people" evading taxes, it addresses transactions from people from all slices of the socioeconomic spectrum, with a cap that is entirely too low and invasive.
For example: if and when your country goes to pot, and you have a moral obligation to get your family out because we have this perceived notion of borders and sovereignty based on history we didn't agree to, a $3k block on transactions may well block you. We don't have to imagine very hard -- the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a recent prime example. Social order is delicate.
As a more mundane example, perhaps I purchase an item at auction, art or contents of a storage locker. Reporting burden should be on the records of the facility and subject to occasional audit, not on every single transaction that goes through. That'd be like implementing a carbon toll for every mile that I use a bus, walk with shoes, ride a bike, or use any form of motor vehicle. There are much better ways to do that.
Yet, it still doesn't address the core issue, tax avoidance by the wealthy.
Further, implementing a road tax would require cumbersome monitoring generally (and especially if making it progressive) or, if equally treated, would be horribly regressive.
It is a very slippery slope to use the "why would you need it" argument. To me it's on par with "if you have nothing to hide, why would you care".
While we can indeed discuss whether it makes sense in most case to pay large sums in cash, this is not the issue. The issue is whether this should be illegal.
Some people hoard gold and jewellery, should that be illegal? Maybe I am hoarding cash and maybe that's not a great idea but in a free society people should be free to make their own decisions on this.
EU citizen here and I don't remember electing you to represent my opinions. EU is not a hive mind and different people from different jurisdictions have different point of views on this matter. Here where I live people appreciate having access to cash because they don't trust their government.
Apologies if that sounded rude but Its often that I see people claiming to be EU citizens or sympathizers dropping the most arrogant takes. To the point I prefer to browse this website after 7PM in my timezone to avoid "the EU-only HN time".
Whenever I buy a car, tractor, cattle, pump repair, implements, out-buildings, solar system installation, fuel storage, etc...
Because I pay cash and keep the bankers out of the transaction it costs me less and it costs the seller less. I negotiate this ahead of time. Most people in business would rather have cash in hand than wait on the bank and pay their fees.
Sorry to assume where you're from, but I'm guessing America (either North or South)?
In EU you could pay for all those things with a quick and free bank transfer for any amount, so you wouldn't even need to withdraw and travel with all that cash on you. There's no "bank fees", there's no "bankers" to keep out of the transaction, because they don't take any fee.
So with the "convenience" of the free bank transaction what do you give up? There is no free lunch. Somebody pays for that "convenience". My guess is you pay with a loss of privacy from the government and the corporations that run the program for the government. Why would they do that? What is in it for them? Are they your public servant or have you become a governmental pawn?
> Because I pay cash and keep the bankers out of the transaction it costs me less and it costs the seller less.
Other way around (in the Netherlands, which is the subject), bank transfers are free but depositing cash as a business costs money. Paying cash costs the seller more and holding it has a risk of robbery.
Use of systems is never free. It might be subsidized, in the which case bankers would greatly appreciate more transactions on the system, but it is never "free."
> Selon la réglementation européenne, ces systèmes assurent 100 000 euros par déposant.
> (DeepL) According to European regulations, these systems guarantee 100,000 euros per depositor.
Playing devil's advocate: that's as long as the denomination doesn't change. Once it changes (for instance Cr$ -> NCr$ -> Cz$ -> NCz$ -> Cr$ -> CR$ -> R$, and I lived through most of these changes), and you're outside of a conversion grace period (when you can take your cash to a bank and exchange it for new notes), your cash is worthless; if I find an old Cr$ bill stashed somewhere (I probably still have some), they're not worth much more than the paper they're printed on. If your money is in a bank, on the other hand, it will always be converted automatically and transparently.
(On the other hand, I also lived through the infamous "confisco da poupança" which froze most of the money in everyone's bank accounts, so I can clearly see the importance of having money outside of the reach of banks. On a third hand, I also lived through the hyperinflation times, and know that having too much of your money not deposited in an interest-bearing bank account or other similarly good investment means it will lose its value quickly.)
So maybe we should fix fractional reserve instead of having an issue against cash? I would rather pay $10k with a bank transfer than having to carry that much on me.
Yes, fractional reserve banking should be reformed, and that's a reasonable preference. However, my point is that it's also reasonable for people to want to have physical possession of their assets.
That ridiculously wrong. If you got a huge stash of cash and can’t justify where it comes from… well yeah, it screams undeclared work or illegal business. Do you have other legit explanations?
'As I thought, no explanation other than facism.' See how that fails to further the conversation? Please argue in good faith or post elsewhere. Comments are to be substantive.
How fast are bank transfers over there? In the US we have "same day" for small amounts, and a multiple day long clearing for bank to bank personal transfers for larger amounts, ie what you'd pay for a car. Then you'd need a bunch of their banking info.
I don't know about your experience, but I'd like to limit the amount of PII I give to the type of folks I buy used vehicles from. With cash, you both go on your way with the title. Its not to say they were criminals, but I also don't have much reason to trust them beyond the transaction.
For example, I was helping a friend buy a motorcycle. The seller arrived on the bike, we checked it out, paid, etc. He had a shirt on that said something like "stop domestic abuse". Then when his wife/gf/partner showed up to pick him up, he immediately started throwing verbal abuse at her. The guy was unstable but it wasn't immediately obvious. We already had the bike, the title, and we were on our way.
Bank transfer are immediate or next business day.
To send you some money I would only need your IBAN[0] which looks like this: GB82 WEST 1234 5698 7654 32
By the way, you're still allowed to use cash for private transactions, so you can still pay whatever amount of cash you want to a private party to buy an item.
In NL bank transfers are immediate and used everywhere, and the fees for having a bank account are so ridiculously low I don’t even know them anymore, never bothered.
The online payment system via bank transfers (iDeal) works so well I’ve heard it’s going to become a european thing, and I’m legit excited about that.
This concept is so foreign to anyone in the USA where Zelle was only just invented and there was no mechanism for individuals (non-business-entities) to make ACH payments.
Apologies for the bluntness, but this is just extremely naive.
The bank, at its discretion or under order by government, can and will prevent the transfer of funds, so it's really just a case of Murphy's law.
I don't know why there has to be appeal to "fetish fantasies". Is it so hard for you to imagine a scenario where you or others might unjustly be the target of nefarious actions by public or private parties who would wield the bureaucracy of banking system against you? This isn't a hypothetical, one of things opposing counsel does in a lawsuit involving money is to attempt to freeze or restrict your accounts.
You may have never been in a situation where a bank prevents you from moving money, but it happens, and the worldview you are espousing doesn't survive first contact with such a situation.
But you don't have to take my word for it. There's a reason the market for gold ingots exists, and it isn't just to guard against inflation.
I love how you describe it a “fetish fantasy”, I’m sure every authoritarian dictatorship or fascist government in history would have been called a fetish fantasy a decade earlier. So naïve.
The car is a variable for anything you can think of, but I will give you a hypothetical example with the car then. Imagine in 20 years where owning a gas car is frowned upon, the government introduces a new law that one can no longer purchase gas cars - used or not, maybe this government was even lobbied by some electric car conglomerate. Am I allowed to worry about that or is that a fetish fantasy too?
How do people buy used cars? Besides crypto, I don’t know of any non-cash payment method that isn’t prone to fraud, overdraft, or transaction cancellation/reversal in the United States and many sellers on Craigslist etc will only take cash
Who is the Vexl Foundation and why should I care about their index or what they think? I could create any index I want, along with a slick website, to deride or elevate any cause that I want.
I was a juror for a divorce trial recently where the wife had a salary job while the husband spent their entire lives presumably accepting checks for contract work and cashing them without a bank account. So that portion of their joint income was to avoid the IRS and it of course made the settlement difficult because he didn't have any receipts for any of his work that was entirely done under the table.
The plus side is that laws like this of course would prevent tax evasion. It would also mean you need to have a bank to make a living. While I'm not a fan of the creeping authoritarianism of a digital currency that's likely coming as well, it annoys me that so many people just mooch off of government services that the rest of us pay for.
in rural Ohio a hundred years ago, I read that a man built his house, worked as the manager of a bowling alley in town, and raised a family of four with that income alone.
The modern condition is not like that. Is it government taxation, money lending, fines and fees, whatever else? Or is it more like a system of middle-men who expand theirs at the expense of yours, at every turn of the game?
A vague complaint of "moochers" lacks context. There are those that are less able, those that have less to look for, and those that give in to lazy and selfish ways.. all of that, but in different social niches? There is no simple answer, but if you outlaw the path for the ordinary person to have rights, something is lost forever.
People paying 30%-50% or more of their paychecks (not to mention VAT/sales tax) should stop and think about the enormous waste that goes on in their governments with respect to the money they're forced to give them.
Islam has a 2.5% Zakat contribution amount for money, yet Islamic countries were very prosperous until colonization started post WWI, which continues to this day. Even today the Gulf states do not have these exorbitant taxes and they're doing quite well in the face of the capitalistic international financial system, even though they're heavily bitten by it.
Give people the choice to pay 2.5% of their cash holdings and other wealth vs. 35%-50%+ of their income and it's easy to see what they'll choose. But it doesn't sit well with the greedy and wasteful governments, nor the law makers and lobbyists who design the laws with loopholes to be abused by certain people.
In India, any transactions over 50000 INR (about 555 EUR) are discouraged in cash, and if necessary, the payer must provide their PAN card. PAN is the tax identification number in India. It is on the recepient to report these transactions.
It is not illegal though, and you can in fact pay arbitrary amounts of cash for instance at hospitals or jewellery stores, with PAN. I am okay with this oversight, though I'm not too happy about the middlemen. I can't think of any legitimate usecases where one wouldn't want to share PAN, unless they are underreporting income and evading taxes. While I'm often unhappy with how my tax money gets spent, I still begrudgingly pay my taxes and have no sympathy for black money.
We also have instant and free transfers via UPI, and I can transfer any amount, even 1 INR (Approx 1 cent EUR) to anyone. I make about a dozen upi transactions everyday, for practically everything. Roadside snacks to in mall purchases. This further reduces the need for carrying cash. There are only a few holdouts, such as bus tickets purchased on the spot, or the ocassional auto rikshaws that demand cash.
Even foriegn tourists now can "pay lik an Indian", with upi, to borrow marketing slogans from the airport adverts.
Transacting large amounts in cash(banknotes) is going to become increasingly difficult across the world, for better or worse.
We are turning into a narco state, and that largely runs on cash. I don't think the measures are great or will do much, but the fact that they try to do something about it is understandable. Also I really don't care about cash, I never use cash.
I personally think they should just legalize and regulate a lot of the drugs which would be much more effective. People use drugs anyway, they generally do it in a safe way, it makes no sense to keep it illegal, it leaves the whole market to crime.
Legalize, regulate, and charge fat taxes. The crime problems are a symptom of our ridiculous drug laws. If we don't solve the root issue, measures like these will not change anything.
if i am not mistaken, it already is 5000€ across EU for personal payments and 8k or 10k for business payments for years. So it is not a surprise they are pushing it down even more to limit people from holding cash. They will not outlaw it straight up due to many constitutions protecting it but they will make using it as hard as possible. The same as with covid, they imposed so many obstacles for ordinary people that it was easier to just comply.
More than the limit, what seems absurd to me is that businesses seem to be allowed to refuse cash as a form of payment. I am reading the translated version of the article, and it says:
> A seller can decide not to accept cash above a certain amount. Or not accepting cash at all.
Why would not accepting cash at all be allowed? What is the other alternative? Mastercard, visa etc? If for example, a super market chain stops accepting cash and starts accepting only Visa, and for whatever reason I do not have a visa credit card, or worse I am banned by Visa,then I cannot buy groceries anymore?
Also, I am not exactly sure everybody has access to a credit card. Maybe I am missing something here, but this seems a bit stupid/crazy to me.
Not every detail of a business's operations needs to be regulated by the government. I can think of many undo costs this could impose on random small businesses, stripe + iphone should be more than enough for some random business working at some event, forcing them to carry a change box + manually write down every transcation/receipt, risk theft, etc. Always comes with the best intentions though.
The damage is already done by not enforcing "All merchants must accept payment by cash". By accepting that any shop can say "we dont accept cash", we have already lost that freedom to pay by a not easily trackable form.
I wonder what more this law is hoping to achieve? Stopping that one guy who buys 10 laptops with a bag of cash? The merchants are already required by law to report any transactions above a certain amount made by cash.. so it is nothing new.
If I sell my car on Marktplaats, I cannot accept cash? is that it?
“By 2016, only about 2% of the value transacted in Sweden was by cash, and only about 20% of retail transactions were in cash. Fewer than half of bank branches in the country conducted cash transactions.“
What I find really unfair in these situation is that the government is banning something but not really offering any alternative.
There are plenty of transactions where using large amounts of cash is perfectly legitimate and the best option. What is the Dutch government suggesting here? Personal Checks have the obvious issue that the issuer can just default on them long after they have received the good or service.
Cashiers checks solve that problem but you have to pay a fee of a few dozens euros/dollars to get them and they are cumbersome to get (and you can't change the amount if you need to).
Wire transfers suffer from the same problem basically.
Credit/Debit cards are controlled by private entities and being able to receive payment from them is hard and costly to setup.
So what's the alternative to cash for payments over 3k?
Europe has a working system of direct bank transfers that are used all the time by most everyone. Europeans basically never use checks. A lot of Americans here are really confused because America does not have this infrastructure but it exists in Europe and people already use it all the time.
I am European too and while we have better payment systems than in the US it's far from perfect. If you're referring to a SEPA transfer it is at least an order of magnitude more friction than handing over cash to someone.
In NL the iDeal system and Tikkie have -according to me- less friction than cash, and surely not for any large amount if you are on the receiving side (no need to have any change, money won’t be fake, you won’t have to deposit it, you can request a specific amount or let it open for the other person). Here’s some info: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEALhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment#Tikkie
They’re used by people of all age, as far as I can tell; the only time I witnessed a problem with it, was when a ~50 year old man had to pay me 600€ for stuff he bought, and I ended up having to take cash. Worth noting that person who paid me is a house painter, a job with a great potential for being paid cash to evade taxes to begin with…
I did not know about these systems, thanks for enlightening me. Now I am a bit jealous my own country (France) does not have anything like this (as far as I know).
They were also impressive for me, having moved here; I’ve heard iDeal should become a EU-wide thing.
I added in my original post links to wikipedia, if you want more details. The section “criticism” is quite funny: it works like cash money (no guarantees from the bank if you get scammed, it’s not a credit card), and there might be some downtime at some point (1 day/year in total).
I doubt it as the value of cash isn't only the value, but also in liquidity and granularity. Regardless of whether you have a $50k car or diamond, if you want to buy some groceries you're gonna need to liquidate because no one is gonna have a diamond worth $50k - $25 handy.
This is a nice theory, but doesn't really hold up in practice. For bartering to work, the other party has to hold an interest in what you have, a $1 bill and $1 cigarette are not interchangeable in that sense. If you want to buy bread but the baker doesn't smoke, what good would your cigarettes do for him?
That's been the case for years in Belgium. I like cash, and use it whenever I can. But I can't say this limit ever affected me in any way. Largest cash transaction I ever did wasn't even half that. You can't even get your hands on that much with ease anymore. ATMs are capped at less than that. Most (all?) banks will refuse to hand you that much cash.
Unless you run a business which accepts a lot of cash, the odds of you having that much cash on hand are slim. And even then, how often do you make a payment that big?
Of course, criminals don't care about these limits, so it's pretty much pointless.
That’s flat out unacceptable. It’s your money. If you walk into a bank and ask for all of it, they should have enough on hand to give it all to you for a normal individuals account. It’s not the bank’s money or the governments money to decide where it gets stored or how it gets spent. You worked hours of your life to earn that money, years of your life that you traded for cash that the government says you can’t be trusted with because there’s a chance you might be a criminal. That is in no way, shape, or form the sign of a well-functioning, citizen-focused government. That’s a government that wants to track its citizen’s payments more closely.
Note that the restriction only applies to _cash_ money. If I have €100,000 in my bank account and do a transfer to another bank account, it happens for free and (almost, depending on the circumstances) instantly. If I go to the bank and ask for that €100,000 in cash, I won't get it. I personally consider this an okay restriction of my freedom if it means drug cartels and large-scale criminals can be caught.
We had a guy in Usti nad labem coming to Raiffeisenbank every few weeks and deposing money, approximately 4b usd in total. The bank was supposed to run due diligence but its Raiffeisenbank which does not seem to give a shit. I can sort of understand trying to limit cash when you see that the due diligence is mostly omitted.
4 billion dollars! Supposing he carried a large army rucksack each time, full with 25kg of US $100 bills. That would be 2.5 million dollars a time, and it would still take him 1600 trips.
If he came "every few weeks" at 20 times a year, it would take him 80 years. A billion dollars really is a lot of money.
Perhaps he brought the money by wheelbarrow or car or container truck, or he dealt exclusively in €500 notes, so I suppose it's not completely unbelievable.
he was mostly using euros per the article. Also the article mentions he mostly traveled by train... The article mentions he usually took the money back in dolars.
According to the article it took him 15 years. Had been frequently visiting a single bank in Prague center (Raiffeisenbank) only with a briefcase exchanging EUR into USD in cash. Doing each time 2+2 hour round trip by train from his home town Usti nad Labem (sometimes carring up to 5M USD) .
It's amazing how many Europeans love letting their governments all up in their business. It's my money. I earned it. I already paid taxes on it. I should be able to spend it however I want.
These decisions reek of ignorance. Banking is not as frictionless as people seem to think. Many law abiding people have issues opening bank accounts, maybe they're immigrants, maybe their name fuzzy matches someone on the ofac list, maybe their bank decided that that last $10000 payment was unusual for this customer and blocked their account and started asking for documents that they might not have in a timely manner, like utility bill (but you're living with a friend), or a credit card statement (but banks won't approve of one for you because you have no way to be grandfathered in), or you have your money on SVB and it blew up and you had to withdraw/borrow cash to make payroll (transferring would take too long and might fail). There is so much mindless automation that thinks it's correct, and so many banking industry employees that can only tell you "well, the system said...", that I fear this will break many people's lives.
Also remember that people really do live very different lives that are perfectly legal, that's what freedom is. This is deciding to make conformity into the law.
Finally, my greatest fear is that this (and many distopian policies I've seen recently from Europe and the US) is creating the justification that many authoritarian regimes (esp. in Africa) have always hoped for to irreversibly break democracy and throw human rights out the window. I know we should be able to solve our own issues, but...we haven't, and this will realistically make it almost impossible to do now.
Here in Switzerland, I have a daily cash limit to put in ATM (there are ATMs allowing cash deposits), and this limit is about 50000 francs (52400 euros). Daily. Fully anonymous. There is no limit, of course, for in-person deposits (and withdrawals) at the bank counter. You can get millions in cash. And you can buy and sell gold bars anonymously.
I love Switzerland. Not that I have that much money, but I love this kind of freedom.
I’m curious, aside from it going into a bank account (so it isn’t actually anonymous), my question is the mechanism of how the deposit works. In the UK we have deposit machines but you must put a card in the machine before depositing money (and my bank in particular make you input your PIN to make a deposit, so I just use the counter staff)
So, fun fact, in the USA state of Illinois , cannabis dispensaries are cash only. This is probably because cannabis is still illegal at the federal level. Of course, being such a potentially lucrative target for thieves, each dispensary has security personnel who will only grant admission after ID is shown.
Interestingly, every one I have seen has an ATM on site.
In MA, they'll take debit for a fairly small transaction fee. I don't think they did initially when they started opening up.
>Of course, being such a potentially lucrative target for thieves, each dispensary has security personnel who will only grant admission after ID is shown.
I assume the state law just doesn't allow anyone under 21 to be admitted.
I want to say yes, that you must be over 21, but I am not certain.
I do know that you can purchase with out of state ID, but you have a lower limit as to how much you can buy than if you are an Illinois resident.
A friend is a regular customer and he shared that he qualified for a discount after purchasing so much over time.
Personally, I rarely use cash much. I actually forgot the PIN to my debit card. Had the same $20 in my billfold for months.
In another part of this thread, somebody quoted a section where it listed cash, crypto, gold, platinum, and precious stones as all being part of the legislation.
Crypto can only be controlled at the legal conversion point to/from fiat. Because otherwise it's just a packet over the Internet.
Mind you, I said legal. Because black markets have always existed to fill the niche prohibited by the government. These days the black market also lets you bypass KYC laws for crypto.
Legislators up in their ivory tower have always held the misguided belief that laws can direct human behaviour. If one wants to make a "cash" (i.e. untraceable) transaction over €3000, it's not laws that are gonna stop them.
The viability of Bitcoin is correlated by how tight they pull the noose around cash. As an obnoxious crypto-anarchist, I welcome these laws, this is how the state will destroy its own currency in favour of the one that doesn't respect borders, limits and embargoes.
People will always favour the currency with the least amount of hoops to jump through.
Cash isn’t really controlled either. If my neighbor wants to sell me his guitar for $10,000 I can take a bundle of cash to him and get the guitar.
> the misguided belief that laws can direct human behaviour
Laws can direct human behavior.
> People will always favour the currency with the least amount of hoops to jump through
I mostly agree with this. It’s a lot easier for me to use US dollars (directly or indirectly through a debit or credit card) than pesos or rubles or yen. So I spend US dollars mostly through a credit card because it’s easy, fast, has generous rewards, and protects me from shitty sellers.
Let bring back gold payments! There are already some institutions that offer gold certificates: notes that represent gold stored in some bolt and collectable on demand.
It was a good idea all along and the reason that "gold back currency does not fit a growing economy" is BS if not properly substantiated.
There is nothing stopping you from using gold as payment.
But its not anonymous, if you want consumer protection then you need a contract (thats how gold is traded, and has been for many many years)
You don't want to physically exchange gold, because verification of gold's value is super hard. In low volumes proving that you have the correct volume and purity is very difficult and expensive.
> The problem with gold deposit certificates is centralization.
I find fiat currency pretty centralized as well. So centralization is not very gold specific. There're even some "gold on blockchain" going on, which would --to some extend-- solve that problem.
I don't like this. I recently sold some networking equipment to somebody for a bit more than this amount and asked for cash. Made the whole transaction simple. Things like this just keep taking power from the people and moving it into the government and private companies.
Some countries like Denmark (starting 2020) have banned paying with the 500 Euro bank note. It's also no longer printed, but some 600 million of them still exist. I've seen a documentary where (I think it was Swedish police) would like to ban 200 Euro notes as well.
The 10,000 dollar note remains legal tender in Singapore but is being withdrawn from circulation together with the 1,000 note:
"Note: MAS has stopped issuing the following notes as a pre-emptive measure to reduce the potential money laundering and terrorism financing risks associated with large denomination notes:
The $1,000 notes with effect from 1 January 2021.
The $10,000 notes with effect from 1 October 2014.
Existing $10,000 and $1,000 notes in circulation remain legal tender in Singapore and can continue to be used as a means of payment for goods and services."
Fun fact, 500 euro bank notes are worth more than 500 euro as they are used to illegally move money (because of their high value/weight ratio).
550 euro 6 years ago, as per Nicola Gratteri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wugqeLgOPZM
What do you base this information on really? Neither Denmark or Sweden are part of the eurozone. Their currencies are Danish krone (DKK) and Swedish krona (SEK). My Sweden experience is that practically only exchange offices (and banks maybe) will touch cash euros.
Edit: Sure, large players of the underground market might accept euros, especially in inter-European trade. But good luck "banning" them from using such and such notes among themselves.
Are Euros accepted in Denmark when the currency is the krone? I recognise that Denmark is part of the EU, but it has an opt-out for the Euro. Is it standard practice to accept Euros in general, be it 500 Euros or less in parts of the EU that have not adopted the Euro (eg. Sweden, Romania, the Czech Republic, etc.)?
It’s interesting to see people’s (mostly negative) comments, without anyone seemingly realizing any of the details behind it / the nuances / situation that lead to this decision.
Most people apparently just respond to the first emotion that comes up…
Cultural differences, as well. People have different "threat models", usually based on historical incidents in their country. Which become embedded as political "traumas".
Extreme distrust of the government, especially the American distrust of federal vs state government, doesn't really make sense in many European countries. Especially when the Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy. The most pro-cash anti-surveillance Europeans are Germany and Austria (traumas of hyperinflation, Nazis, and the Stasi).
My inmediate reaction is:
"This is how we start. Watch it go down with time." and someone will say "there's already X amount".
But 3000 is pretty trivial and inflation makes it worse as well.
The end result seems to be the absolute desire of corporations and governments to have us control no actual money so they track everything while being absolutely non transparent themselves and can switch it off at their whim or, simply due to "system error", good luck going through the buteocratic process to get it back.
When it stops being about convenience and becomes forced, it's always a danger.
Commenting from a US perspective, where we don't have this limit.
IMO, the only time this causes issue is when transacting private-to-private sales of big ticket items. Most likely something with a title (cars, boats, ATVs, trailers, etc, etc).
I really despise having to bring thousands of dollars of cash to buy a vehicle, but right now there just isn't a better way to do it. Sign the title, exchange the cash, and it's essentially a 100% guarantee the transaction works.
With a limit like this you need an arbitrator. Right now, there simply isn't a good way to do that.
I wonder about the numbers: are cash payments a major enabler in imoral activity?
I guess they can make it slightly more difficult for a drug dealer to buy a car or house, but my intuition is that corruption and money laundering deal with much higher numbers and can go around it.
Not that fighting 1 bad thing is wrong, but considering disadvantagedssuch as loss of privacy and (even) more reliance on banks, we must balance the pros and cons.
Another useful one is that in order to pay for a house you have to wire the amount to a notary who holds the amount in escrow on a special bank account managed by an entity similar to the national central bank (Caisse des Dépôts). You do not need to worry about not being paid, or being scammed.
There is a somewhat famous case in Germany, where an elderly couple's house got sold without them knowing, because someone changed the paper deed, and some scummy business man confirmed that he got the money in cash.
They better introduce systems like this in Germany too, but they rather drown in mafia related crime than admitting that their analog way of doing business and clinging on to cash is a mistake.
The USD $100 note was introduced in 1914, and at that time was equivalent to several months' wages for an average citizen.
If currency note denominations were to keep up with inflation, today the Fed would be printing $3000 bills. Yet $100 is still all that we have, effectively making cash transactions less and less feasible every year.
It says there is a bill in the works. Nothing definite yet. If it does pass, that seems very odd to me, especially coming from the US. I noticed the policy on €10K or more is already similar to what we have here for dollars. Anything $10K in cash or more gets flagged, and you have to fill out a form.
And then you wonder why the crypto keeps going up (I'm talking about long term trends). Many believe that the 2016/2017 spike in crypto coincided with the Indian demonetization of November 2016, when the Indian govt. declared all currency notes to be invalid.
Curious because I've never done it, how do people buy used cars off classifieds other than with cash? Checks can bounce, e-transfers can be reversed, etc. Seems any method other than cash is very susceptible to scams.
Bought and sold dozens of cars. Cash is always preferred, but have also met people at their bank to do the transaction. Checks, venmo, paypal, money orders are all fraught with risk.
> what would be the back up plan for in case of war, solar flare* or other natural disaster?
Does it need to be a natural disaster? Things like a widespread network failure, a major bank's systems going down for a while (happened not so long ago here), or even a country-wide blackout (we had one last week, triggered by a fault in a fault detection system mistakenly powering down a high-voltage transmission line, and for some yet to be determined reason that led to an instability which triggered other fault detection systems) can be a pain if you depend on an online system.
The world had far fewer people before electronics, and they in part allowed for the agriculture to keep up.
Even assuming things like tractors etc. still work see how much yield local farmer will get once he can't get their fertilizers and pesticides shipped.
"harsh" is understatement, we're talking hundreds of millions dying from hunger within a year or two.
End completely, no. But the "civilized" way of exchanging cash for goods will be gone for quite a little bit. Long enough that we can figure out how to make more cash. Not that the existing one will be miraculously gone either.
There will always be a standard good for the basis of trade in proxy for government backed currency. The best choices will be durable (won't rot for a prolonged period of time), fungible (easy to convert back to digital cash), useful, and small to facilitate exchange at various magnitudes. Many choices will not fit cleanly and will all be less palatable. Notably, foreign physical currency, US stamps/bonds/checks, alcohol, or canned food would suffice. Ironically, a digital US currency should bolster alternative digital currencies.
If a solar flare powerful enough to destroy the entire electronic payment system were to occur I'm sure everyone will be fine with you buying your storable food and colloidal silver with cash.
But solar flares that powerful are an actual serious threat, and have been recorded throughout history. It's just we have been so lucky to develop a heavy dependence on electricity in a quiet period.
>In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd's of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the US used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the cost of a similar event in the present to the US alone at US$600 billion to $2.6 trillion (equivalent to $698 billion to $3.02 trillion in 2021[28]),[3] which, at the time, equated to roughly 3.6 to 15.5 per cent of annual GDP.
NOAA currently puts Carrington Events at a 1 in 500 year occurrence on Earth.
This kind of absurd bullshit is exactly why crypto is so important. Access to cash like money is a human right, and this right is being rapidly eroded across the world.
in italy is 1,000EUR for a while, similar in other EU countries with varying thresholds. I personally prefer how the UK does it or other countries where private individuals have no limit but if you have a commercial activity you must have some regulation in place
> The consumers can make cash payments without any limits.
> The traders, however, need to register themselves with tax authorities as 'High Value Dealers' if accepting cash payments in excess of €10,000
Many eu countries alreadt have such limits , and I think it's fine to require that for legal transactions. After all the tax man has eyes everywhere already.
There is also a good chunk of countries with no limit for cash purchases. For example there is no limit on cash purchases in Germany with the exemption for real estate and rent above 10k a month. However it only it only came into force this year and so far it doesn't seem entirely clear of it is constitutional [1].
More interesting in my opinion are new proposed EU laws standardising money laundering laws in the EU, which seems to include a 10,000€ transaction limit for cash transactions...[2]
Without cash, you're giving the government the power to de-bank you and control what you can and can't spend your money on, even your ability to feed yourself.
In Canada, during COVID Lockdowns they prevented the unvaccinated from getting on planes or trains, or buses. And required truckers to get the shot to drive their trucks.
The truckers protested, so the government froze the protestor's accounts and many of those who that donated to them. So people started to give them cash so they can feed themselves and continue the protest.
Literally without cash, these people would be on the brink of bankruptcy and starvation.
Yes but did you know that me, a resident of <large_european_city> has no need for cash? In fact, no one in my immediate circle of acquaintances even carries cash anymore. We all simply use <popular_payment_app>. It's so easy and convenient!
In fact, only criminals and various vaguely detestable elements of society insist on using cash. I know this because <large_media_conglomerate> and <government_agency> told me so. I'm not a bad person. I don't want my friends and coworkers to think I'm a bad person. Let's all just do what our surrogate parental figures say, it's really for the best.
When are we going to outlaw (as in actually enforce laws) on intelligence agencies honey-potting politicians as a strategy for foreign policy?
Because any article that talks about Terrorism yet fails to account Jeffrey Epstein style honey-pot operations which implicated people such as Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, etc... is really meaningless to me.
Justice does not exist when Laws are selectively enforced, and propagandized with "muh terrorism" or "think of teh children" by the same governments which are complicit in negligence towards massive crimes happening in the underworld of world government leaders.
Rather than knee-jerk downvoting everyone who gets it wrong, I'd like to point out that, in English, both the Euro symbol and the Dollar symbol go before the number.
Many people still write it the other way, even in the usa, particularly when no cents are involved. Your pedantry has been notid, but is not useful. Nobody is confused.
They can't control the black market in drugs, what makes them think controlling a black market in cash, which is a million times more desirable, will be any more successful? There's the small matter of millions of undocumented migrants entering Europe who will be trapped in this now-illegal-cash underclass, and these financial oppression laws just incentivise and create criminal networks to facilitate basic economy. This is financial oppression that totally demoralizes their society as a means to dissolve it.
It's not a lot of money, and given inflation, diminishingly so. This is targeted at law abiding smallholding farmers where roadside transactions are often done in cash and farmers everywhere have a lot of tax relief precisely because they provide food security for nations - and it's to the benefit of criminal networks to top it off. The architects of this policy are disgusting.
> They can't control the black market in drugs, what makes them think controlling a black market in cash, which is a million times more desirable, will be any more successful?
Well, for one, they control cash production
> It's not a lot of money, and given inflation, diminishingly so. This is targeted at law abiding smallholding farmers where roadside transactions are often done in cash and farmers everywhere have a lot of tax relief precisely because they provide food security for nations - and it's to the benefit of criminal networks to top it off. The architects of this policy are disgusting.
Do you have any actual example of that ? What transaction do small farmers need to do along roadside for thousands of eur ? As kid of small farmer I don't remember anything like that ever happening.
It's illegal to pay minimum wage in cash, due to employers abusing and underpaying vulnerable people. (Any amount over the minimum wage can be paid cash, but there has to be a bank payment made for at least the minimum wage.)
Tell me you don't know much about how payments are done outside USA without saying so directly.
All of the above are very likely done electronically in Netherlands.
Denmark has an even lower limit (€2700) and there has been no problems with this. Denmark no longer supports payments using checks.
I've never heard of anybody being paid wages in cash in Denmark. It's so uncommon that the Danish IRS even had to explain it is actually possible to do so.
I’m pretty sure the 3000 limit is not at all a huge issue in any of those cases pretty much anywhere in Europe and bank transfers are also cheap and instant.
Not that I agree with this ban. I really don’t but focusing on farmers specifically is very strange when farming is so heavily commercialized, especially in the Netherlands.
Bank transfers are cheap and instant when both parties in the transaction have a working bank account, which means they had a residence where they could receive mail, which means they had government identification, etc.
You can get a functioning bank account usually in less than 30 minutes by downloading an app as long as you have a valid ID (no verified address is needed)
But yeah, if you’re not a citizen and don’t live in the EU it might be tricky (then again AFAIK bringing large amounts of cash from a third country is not that straightforward either).
What does this have to do with Dutch farmers, though?
having an address and ID is not so much a problem, it is keeping your address and ID valid once a few dozen people in authority can live for years by charging money for lots of reasons to renew them, and perhaps also problems for you if you do not behave.
This is as old as countries themselves. You must be intellectually dishonest to ignore these historically crucial patterns.
If someone is paying for farm equipment, vehicles or livestock with tens of thousands in cash, you can absolutely be certain something very, very dodgy is going on. At the very least someone is doing some serious tax evasion.
So sounds like exactly the kind of transaction this law is supposed to block. working as intended.
Not from the Netherlands but from a small third world country: farmers around here like to buy things on spot doing handshake deals and carrying bags of cash. I've heard them buying a lot things from cattle to agricultural supplies and even vehicles.
Mind you, this is a poor country. The middle class in the capital city can't even dream of making what these farmers make.
I've done this myself many times. No one wants a check (especially not a probably-fake cashier's check) and no one wants to take the time to go to a bank, and why does the bank need to be involved or aware at all.
>Do you have any actual example of that ? What transaction do small farmers need to do along roadside for thousands of eur ? As kid of small farmer I don't remember anything like that ever happening.
While each transaction might be <3000, on a good weekend, I could see it totaling to be over that amount. At this point, would it be illegal for the farmer to show up to his bank to deposit 3001? Does the farmer now need to waste time to make 2 separate trips to make each deposit < 3000? Maybe take the spouse and kids along so they each make a smaller deposit? Does this require visiting multiple branches?
>Only it’s very weird to just assume that this might apply to bank deposits…
Is it? I find it weird you think so. If you and I exchange > 3000 between us, nobody will ever know, so the law is pointless. The one place that this can be policed is at the bank level. You're assumption seems to be that if you gave me 3000, I'd just keep it in cash.
In the US, if you make a deposit > $10,000, the bank is regulated to report it. It doesn't matter why you are making that deposit, it gets reported. Applying the same thing to Euro markets only seems natural.
Edit: Actually, even car dealerships have to report someone showing up to buy a car with >$10,000 in cash as well.
We might focus on the law itself and not some hypothetical situation.
> nobody will ever know, so the law is pointless.
You can’t sign a contract for anything worth more than €3000 if you want to pay in cash. If you want to declare your income, pay taxes, prove that you obtained the money legally when you later want to deposit it to an bank, during a tax audit etc. Of course it won’t affect transactions which are already done illegally so it depends on what do you mean by ‘pointless’.
The $10k limit is also a thing in Europe, the exact amount varies by state though (I think).
You can deposit whatever amount you want into your bank account, they just might ask questions regarding where the money came from, and if you show that you sold products there's zero issues.
This isn't the gotcha you think it is. As for all businesses transactions, you should file it in your accounting software and make sure you pay taxes, vat etc on it. This law changes nothing in that regard.
Ad hominem attack but without any additional details to support your assertion?
>> You can deposit whatever amount you want into your bank account, they just might ask questions regarding where the money came from, and if you show that you sold products there's zero issues.
The original assertion was that you'd need to 'show that you sold products'.. to the bank, not your accountant... rather more difficult than it appears at first blush.
Every single country in the EU has VAT. If you’re yearly revenue is to low (not that likely for commercial farmers) you still have to give out receipts for every sale.
Also have you heard about bookeping? It’s also a thing that has existed for thousands of years.
Presumably you have to pay taxes so the standard is probably somewhere in between what the tax authorities acquire and no questions asked.
Buy yeah, some banks in the EU might be overzealous and small/medium businesses can often run into issues related to their idiotic fraud prevention systems. But I don’t see how is that an issue with the system itself and not with the implementation.
Right, but they don't control the distribution and transaction of cash. They may stop producing €500 notes—for example, but there is nothing they can do to stop these farmers or undocumented immigrants from bundling together >€3000 in smaller notes for use in paying rent, buying cars, or investments.
> if they find more than 3000 eur in one place that is not pre authorized, they will confiscate it all and punish the people who had that kind of cash; it's becoming 'the law'
Can you please not make shit up to be obsessed about?
Whether a conviction occurs in court is largely irrelevant, because it's in excess of the 3000 limit that this law actually puts in place, and therefore de jure illegal.
In the U.S., no conviction of the owner is even necessary, since the conviction is of the cash itself. This is likely coming to EU as well because it's a easy way for the enforcement state to increase its coffers and, in theory, stop money laundering.
> because it's in excess of the 3000 limit that this law actually puts in place, and therefore de jure illegal.
I don't get it, do you not understand the difference between possessing a certain amount of cash and making a single payment over a certain amount in cash?
How do you make a logical leap from the latter to the former?
Similar laws in the US have readily morphed into we're going to hold it until you prove it's not from illegal sources. Googling it will provide many examples.
> This is targeted at law abiding smallholding farmers where roadside transactions are often done in cash
Where (in NL) do you find farmers who routinely need to accept >3k in cash and are (somehow?) unable to accept electronic payments? Pretty much everyone everywhere can accept at least one form of electronic payments. That's a legal requirement for any business in Belgium, and I can't imagine the Dutch being that far behind on that ...
Even if you can't take card or contactless payments or apps, you can do instant bank transfers with most banks within the EU ("Instant Payments"), either free of charge or pretty cheap. There's no excuse for being unable to accept non-cash money. There are, however, plenty of reasons to be unwilling, but that's another story.
People who can independently produce food have a form of real power that is very hard to resist.
The measures used to keep various peasant and serf classes under control were so extreme in history because if they became able to exercise that power the social order was overturned.
There are for sure tradeoffs here, but in Germany for example they recently made paying in cash for real estate illegal because it was obvious that almost all those cash transactions involved crime money of some sort.
Edit: As noted below cash here refers to paper money. The same law also prohibits real estate purchase with gold, silver, diamonds or crypto currencies.
One of my banks forbids making bank transfers of over 10,000 EUR. The other is not far behind.
Even then, sometimes they simply decide that they're not going to allow you to make bank transfers to certain perfectly legitimate accounts. There is no way to override that.
For the past couple of days I've been trying to set up an automatic monthly transfer for paying my rent and my bank is not allowing me because it's "exceeding the allowable daily limit", even though I haven't done any transfers or significant payments lately, and my rent is way below the 10,000 EUR limit.
You also can't withdraw large sums of money easily.
Furthermore, even when they allow these large transfers (which presumably would require you to physically visit a branch which might be in a different country or even continent), it's not uncommon to charge a not insignificant percentage of that money as a fee. This is significantly more common for large transfers than for small ones.
Large inbound transfers can be even more of a hassle, as banks often require you to provide documents justifying why you're receiving that money, which not only might be difficult in some cases (even when you're not doing anything illegal), but also invades your privacy and can be a significant security risk in some situations.
All of this basically makes banks a prison for your money, which not even you can access easily.
And besides, all that is assuming that you are even able to open a bank account.
There are many reasons for why opening a bank account is hard or even impossible in many cases.
And believe me, this doesn't happen in just one or two banks, it's quite common procedure in practically every bank, and increasingly so.
Where is this? I doubt that it's legal for a bank to actually prevent you from transferring money. Yes, I also have a limit, but if I call my bank and tell them I need to transfer 500,000 to buy a house they will allow it. The limit is there is to prevent fraud.
It's in the two countries in Europe where I've lived.
> if I call my bank and tell them I need to transfer 500,000 to buy a house they will allow it
What you're saying is not possible in the banks I've used.
To buy houses in recent years, I've had to set up appointments and physically go to the central office of one of the banks, and to a local branch of another. They provided me with a special bank-issued cheque for the transaction.
In one of the cases, this required me to travel to another country just for this purpose.
It was a significant hassle and even then I was lucky that this was in an adjacent country. It could have easily been in the other side of the world.
> The limit is there is to prevent fraud.
Right... fraud... of course!
Is that why one of the banks only allows me to set up a 5 digit password (yes, only numbers) to access my account? And why the other one only allows me to set up a 6 digit password (again, only numbers)?
Is that also why they require me to dictate this same password (as well as other personal details) over the phone when I want to make a large transaction? So that other people who are physically near me can hear the password easily?
And that's even assuming I typed their phone number correctly in my phone, otherwise I would be giving my password to strangers unknowingly!
Look, I really don't care if it's fraud, or money laundering laws, or because the Pope mandated it. I've never been a victim of fraud, it's extremely unlikely for me to ever be a victim of fraud in the future, I'm not doing anything illegal and it's my money.
There are many other ways to deal with fraud, such as having most of the money locked (e.g. in a separate account, with more restrictions or delays), providing notifications, using two-factor authentication, calling the customers to confirm the transaction, etc, etc.
And yes, I know in many banks (including mine) they also do a subset of these, but even then the restrictions are still there.
I'm sorry, but fraud alone does not explain what's happening, unless the banks are extremely incompetent (and yes, it's quite possible that they are).
Regardless, the end result is the same: I simply cannot use my money easily, period.
Well there is no reason you shouldn't be able to. Think about how large purchases were made before banking networks existed.
My friend worked for an insurance company that would regularly receive double digit thousands cash payments on policies from pot farms because they can't have bank accounts.
> So if you sell a house and want to buy a new one, you have to pay for a mortgage you don't need?
You misunderstand.
We are talking hard paper cash here. It might help if we quote a translated excerpt here :
This practice is now being abolished by the introduction of Sec. 16a GwG. From 1 April 2023, it will only be possible to purchase real estate using means of payment other than cash, crypto assets, gold, platinum or precious stones. All parties to the transaction are required to present satisfactory proof of payment, for example a payment confirmation from a financial institution.
I believe in this case, cash refers to physical bills, not how it's normally used in conversation (at least in the UK) to mean buying without a mortgage (via bank transfer).
This law is intended to make large amounts of cash less useful without killing the utility of smaller amounts. If large amounts of cash become less useful that makes money laundering a lot harder.
A black market for cash already exists. The people who buy it are called money launderers.
If you want the convenience of a government backed currency you’ll need to do so digitally which makes fraud investigation a lot easier. Don’t like it? Bad luck. This is where every fair economy is heading.
> This is targeted at law abiding smallholding farmers where roadside transactions are often done in cash.
Most EU nations are setting up instant payment systems for these and other "informal" use cases. In Sweden you can buy strawberries at a sidewalk stall and pay through Swish [0]. I should also stress that, no matter how bad Swedish inflation is at the moment, it's very unlikely that you will ever spend >3k EUR (about 35k SEK) on strawberries :)
I think GP's intention was to mention the farmers themselves, who would (presumably, I'm neither a farmer nor European) receive above >€3000 in egg-revenue per week/month/annum, and then go deposit that at the bank, use it for mortgage payments, or pay for farm equipment et al. in cash.
No self respecting company buying those goods would do cash transactions to a business in the Netherlands. All perishable goods are tightly regulated and cash payments make that harder to administer.
Paying your various-shades-of-grey farmhands is another story.
It makes money laundering harder for low and intermediate level drug dealers. Netherlands is a major importer for drugs: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Hamburg are major ports for drugs. Drug wholesalers in EU would rather transport millions of euros abroad, and use these euros in Africa in order to buy gold and other metals from locals. All of sudden, one ends with gold, sell gold back to refiners and get paid with bank transfers. It is a trade based money laundering. What the West want is to abolish cash everywhere across the world, it is an impossible goal. Even if Zimbabwe wants to abolish cash and use digital transactions, ordinary Zimbabweans don't want to participate in that.
Many of them aren't even transporting the money thanks to the hawala network around the world. Where I'm from otherwise legit exchange offices have been caught doing this and acting as a sort of bank for criminals, holding millions in safes.
Getting around the limitations of cash is no problem for those on the inside. Just like tax havens are only an option for the super wealthy who wouldn't really need them in the first place.
Have you ever been to the Netherlands? Many people don't even carry cash, never mind people buying goods from farmers. Card payments are so prevalent that some sellers at markets don't even accept cash.
If they want to pay rent or buy a car or any other thing of value, yes.
Also, it doesn't matter whether it's frequent or not. "Let's ban migrants from buying cars because they don't buy them frequently" is not exactly the most convincing argument.
Unregistered migrants cannot buy a car at all, because they can’t register it and get a plate (details differ between countries, but legal residence is a requirement everywhere in the EU). Registered migrants can get a bank account.
Who the hell pays rent in cash? I doubt that’s even an option with any rental company except for shady / illegal slumlords, who will ignore this law anyway.
Also, what kind of illegal immigrant rents a >€3000/month home?
> Who the hell pays rent in cash? I doubt that’s even an option with any rental company except for shady / illegal slumlords, who will ignore this law anyway.
It's not necessarily easy for migrants to open bank accounts. Sometimes it's even impossible.
Even for me, I assure you that opening a bank account would not be easy (or maybe even possible) due to stricter requirements in recent years, even though I've never done anything illegal (to my knowledge) and I'm not a migrant.
I know this because I've looked into many banks with the intention of opening an account and the requirements are all similar between them. This is in two different European countries.
And well, for the past couple of days I've been trying to set up an automatic monthly bank transfer for my rent and my bank is not allowing me because it's "exceeding the daily allowable limit", even though it's way below the daily allowable limit that I've ran into multiple times for normal bank transfers.
So there's that.
> Also, what kind of illegal immigrant rents a >€3000/month home?
Rents have gone up considerably in European capitals and consider that multiple immigrant families can live under the same (larger) roof.
Inflation will also eat up these limits over time, as governments almost never increase cash limits according to inflation (even though they do it for many, many other things).
Also, the limits are lower in some countries (500 EUR in Greece, 1000 EUR in Spain). I know for a fact that it's almost impossible to get a decent place in the center of Madrid for less than 1000 EUR nowadays.
The problem with black markets is they function because the money they trade in has real world value. If you taint significant sums so they can't be used to buy assets (3k is a lot of money for a single transaction, thanks) you make it harder to benefit from crime.
And I don't understand why you're explicitly defending tax evading smallholders. Because farms? Even smallholders can declare and deduct expenses.
On your first point, some countries allow asylum seekers to work, and even if they don't, some tax systems allow them to declare income even if they're not really allowed to have any. I'm definitely in favour of making sure everyone works to the same rule, so everyone can live honestly.
How does this target farmers if the tax relief is legitimate? It isn't. The farmers just have a vastly inflated sense of self importance and consider paying taxes to be optional.
>>You can look in some of my recent comments to see a thread where people in Amsterdam were celebrating the installation of "noise cameras" along public roads because they bought into the claims that it was to fine "loud cars."
I think that's an insane argument to use to "prove" that NL is descending into tyranny. Loud cars(and motorbikes) are an actual nuisance to people and it's great that they are being introduced. What's next, speed cameras are tyranny too?
The fact is that much of the world news Snowden was revealing already, was common practice in Netherlands for a while before that; and it was publically accepted.
For instance they could & can eaves drop on your phonecalls without any warrant needed from an independent judge. They just need approval from a commission they can create themselves: https://www.aivd.nl/onderwerpen/afluisteren.
There is definitely a big issue with the Government having too much power, lack of independent checks, and being hard to hold them responsible.
> Why do I get the feeling that you hope for this outcome, from this comment?
I do not hope for it. But if it happens, may it serve as a warning and example to everyone else who has freedom and does not currently cherish it enough. I know that what happened to the truckers in Canada when they had their electronic assets frozen certainly woke up people in Canada to a degree.
Gleeful at no more easy transport in or out, eh? Will the regime, I mean The Party, oops I mean The Cabinet, also be removing the noise cameras installed along the roads when they remove the roads? Or are those going to be kept there to protect the people from ideological deviants?
What do you mean they do nothing? They have a redundant microphone array that can track sound with high precision and a camera that can be used to automatically issue fines. Just point the hardware at the people walking about or congregating and see who is saying things The Cabinet doesn't like to hear. Or maybe even who isn't saying enough of what the Cabinet wants to hear. Why get rid of a perfectly functioning and deployed surveillance apparatus?
You realize someone would actually need to repurpose them to do such things, operation which would cost money and technical know how, right? They don't come with those capabilities out of the box.
It's just such a weird argument that you're making. It's like saying that once roads disappear all the speed cameras are going to be repurposed to take pictures of you walking about to match facial data or something. Technically possible I suppose, but given how these things work it might as well be sci-fi. Government would have to scrap the entire system and buy new devices that do what you suggest, and that's where the whole idea will fail.
this thinking stems from different political environment.
In EU we still have some power over politicians. US with its cemented dual party is basically a fasade of democracy. Thats why US people are so anti government.
Everything is always set in us vs them context.
Lets hope this trend will not affect eu countries too much.
Of course. That's my position as well. The difference is that in EU the "nanny state overreach" is usually what people actual want and has large democratic support. In US it's like the country shouts super loud about how free everyone is and then you have the real unchecked overreach in every single corner of the government and law enforcement. So yes, of course there's less unchecked overreach in EU(not in Europe).
Guessing you’re from the US, you might want to checkout your own issues regarding mass shootings, guns as the first cause of death on children, abortion, raise of Christian extremism and book bans before criticizing our rulings against noisy cars and motorcycles.
Friend, I recommend carrying cash and using exclusively cash from now on and raising a stink about this legislation while there is still freedom to push back on it.
Ever been to the Balkans? Visited Greece once? Literally every day every single ATM has 30 minute queues. People remember the day when government froze all their money, but notified their millionaire friends a day before so they could move money abroad.
I'm from Poland, only carry about the amount of one big grocery cart in once in two years event when transaction system has problem.
The things I paid/got paid for/in cash (say above $500) are so far:
* advance for a house, which is pretty much done cos it makes whole procedure easier for both sides
* that one time buyer of the land we were selling decided to pay in cash, but that was back when transaction costs were % of the value (that got changed to something more reasonable), so just taking a bag of money out of bank to give someone else that then went to bank and put it into their account was significantly cheaper than electronic transfer
I think it's also semi-common in buying cars, as then it's simple trasaction (here are your keys, here is your money) vs buyer maybe not being paid. But for mine I just paid via elixir transaction, it was cheap enough to be under daily limit.
As for sub-$500 still happen reasonably often but mostly old people.
No it's more "muh money laundering".
Dutch government also wants banks to reports all transactions over 100 euros.
The government is unable to control the crime by the cocaine gangs so these kinds of measure are their "solution".
mostly its "muh industrial scale illegal drug synthesis"
Firstly its a fucktonne of cahs sloshing around being laundered, which has a bunch of nasty petty crime sideffects. but also the literal tonnes of toxic waste that keeps on popping up everywhere.
vice in many forms is a problem, of a certain degree. Justice has long held a principled view that punishment must be proportional to the crime. Social studies and medical literature go further and find that moral behavior does not respond to command and control.
With that said - are reasonable people suggesting that restricting private wealth is a social response to vice?
Immediately think to yourself, in a wealthy society, this institutionalizes third party oversight of individual money. Who benefits from that today? Now, who might be pushing this kind of legislation ?
Rotterdam, Amsterdam.
Amsterdam had 100 explosions in 2022, Rotterdam 50. But in 2023 there were 250 explosions by the 16th of July. Will probably end the year with over 1 explosion per day on average, i'd consider that "almost daily".
Just to clarify these aren't accidental explosions but bombs left outside appartments and shops.
Amendment of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act in connection with the ban on cash payments for goods from 3,000 euros and the expansion of the options for information exchange for the gatekeeper function."
> Amendment of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act in connection with the prohibition of cash payments for goods from 3,000 euros and the expansion of the possibilities for information exchange for the gatekeeper function.
Not surprised to see the patriot act talking points that EU residents are using to justify making rules about other people’s money. after all, Europeans and the redistribution of consequences go together like bread and butter.
I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.
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