Topic: How IRS can seize accounts on suspicion alone! - page 2. (Read 6494 times)

Yep, crypto is gonna change the way things are done for sure! The times are changin!

Why should IRS are the only organization to have this kind of authority. Why cant we, the bitcoin community make our own lawsuit to fight against government.

It is not a problem to disclose to a customer that you are filing a CTR (currency transaction report) or a similar form for amounts greater then $3,000 but less then $10,000 (that is also required to be filed) as it is very clear cut that this needs to be submitted to the government as the criteria is only that transaction amounts exceed certain amounts.

It is not okay to disclose that a SAR (suspicious activity report) will be filed. This is filed when (I bet you can't guess) a bank sees some kind of suspicious activity from one of it's customers. Examples of why a SAR would be submitted is when a bank thinks that a customer is trying to structure their deposits so they do not transact in amounts greater then $10,000 in a single day, or that a customer is trying to use questionable identification documents to open an account.

I know a man that was a victim of the IRS. I think the story is he wrote the bank account number wrong. His entire retirement money gone.

The following headline is media extremisim, but the quoted article says you are wrong about structuring:
IRS seizes woman's entire savings because she deposits less than $10,000 at a timeThat having been said, to be clear, I saw phillipsjk's on topic post that responded to the same post above just a few posts back, but it looked difficult to quote with a follow-up response without potentially taking something out of context.

The way Google and other giants to pay tax is permitted by the laws in many countries. You have to change law to prevent that.

at the end of the day i never know if keeping most of my wealth in btc is actually safer or less safe than fiat/bank. the govt is a pretty scary entity.

Reporting requirements apply to financial institutions, while "structuring" applies to customers. As I understand it, "Structuring" is the act of making deposits designed to avoid reporting requirements. BTW the "paperwork" claim was mentioned here. It appears I may have miss-read it:
I interpreted that to mean the bank wanted him to file a form explaining where the money came from (since disclosing a FinCEN filing is largely illegal (I am more familiar with the Canadian rules: only illegal* if it is likely to impede an investigation).)

I don't recall going into the specific penalties.

*I am not a lawyer. I found something in one of the laws or regulations that may make it illegal to disclose anyway (something to do with privacy Act exemptions), but did not have time to thoroughly parse it. (Should have noted the section in question )

It is pretty scary that the government can just seize your money like this which could cause a world of issues for the owners.

You are correct about penalties for structuring, but a reader of this thread, unless they remembered your opening sentence above, might think that structuring applies to retail individuals.  It does not, it applies only to banks and other such financial institutions and the people that run them.  So if you are a US bank teller and fail to report on your customers, or even discuss this rule with your customers, you can run afoul of structuring laws.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act#Sanctions)   But customers don't have any liability other than they must report all transactions greater than 10K overseas, as I am painfully aware, every year.

Good luck with your business.  Moving money these days is so tough, I think it hurts commerce.

For any month other than December, the deposits would be less than $10,000/day. AFAIK, the farmer mentioned was only accused of limiting deposits to under $10,000 (to avoid paper-work), not doing anything silly with multiple branches or consecutive bank days.

If you make multiple deposits in one day, each under $10,000 but all with the same bank then a CTR should be filed by the bank (currency transaction report - what the 'victim' was suspected in avoiding).

It would be possible that the victim was suspected of depositing under $10,000 at multiple banks or was holding amounts in excess of $10,000 and then depositing the difference on following banking days.

time overtake the old stuff.
Arthur C. Clarke.

 

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_c_clarke.html

Well the main problem is that most of the population either: a) doesn't care; b) is ignorant and not aware.
Crypto is the way forward. These stories become scarier and scarier.

It seems cryptocurrency has arrived just at the right time!! The timing could not be better!

The federal govt doesn't pay for stuff with taxes.  They pay for stuff with debt which can be conjured up at will.  Taxes at the federal level are mostly just a means of implementing social policy.  Specifically, re-distribution of wealth.

Public finance at the state and local levels are a whole different ballgame because these entities don't have a Federal Reserve.  They've got a poor second-cousin in raising bonds and such, but these are much less powerful since there is a higher expectation that they'll need to be paid back.  Nobody who is clued in has any expectation that the the Federal debt will be re-paid.

(My read of course.)

Eurozone have law since december 2013 to do this ... legally.

Eurozone have from decade, law to block and retrieve ticket (high speed by automated camera) from the bank account (cost of this for the client = 87 euros) without inform citizen from this if it is in vacancy (like 2 months).

Bitcoin ... can free people.
And that what it can append in short time, now.

We have to pay for those drones somehow.  Janet's starting to run low on ink.

Because is am in the process of trying to register a Money Service Business in Canada, specifically designed to avoid reporting requirements, I found this topic concerning enough to look into it a little more.

Apparently, Structuring is not illegal in Canada, and presumably many other countries. (That Wikipedia page mentions "parceling" is illegal in Australia). While browsing the web, I came across this damning quote:
- “Structuring”: who can get away with it, and who can’t

So the US had a statute where ignorance of the law was actually a strong defense, and by decree: declared that ignorance of the law is no longer a defense. In Canada, I get the impression that structuring is not illegal, only suspicious. That is: if a reporting entity suspects structuring, they need only report all of the small transaction as one large one.

Sometimes there are legitimate business reasons for structuring. When I worked retail, I believe the store had a policy of keeping less than $10,000 in cash on hand. The purpose was to deter theft. Each cash register is supposed to have less then $250 (dropped in $100 increments (I hope this information is not too confidential)). During busy times, they would be making several deposits under $10,000 per day.

It can be argued that working and spending less than you earn (most people's paychecks will be less than $10,000) is also structuring. The Statue on structuring does not appear to be limited to cash transactions.

Yep it is a slippery slope
If it occurs in one place and is left unabated governments will then try to push it in their own district etc.
Always a fight against them.