EU limits anonymous cash payments to €3k and all cash payments to €10k. Pirate party reacts.
EU limits anonymous cash payments to €3k and all cash payments to €10k. Pirate party reacts.
If you want to pay large sums of money abroad in the EU, for example when buying a car, there are a few rules you need to follow. This is because many EU countries have cash limits. This means that cash payments can only be made up to a certain amount.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683880
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421
The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:
- €3k limit on anonymous payments
- €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).
From the jailed¹ article:
An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.
It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!
In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.
The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.
¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.
update
The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.
#warOnCash
The war on cash is a war on privacy.
Chat control was beat. This can be too. Contact your MEP, let them know this issue is important to you: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home
EU. It's the EU, not Europe.
Fixed
The European Union is not synonymous to Europe.
Never underestimate the power of multiple legal anonymous cash payment spread out over time.
Actually cash payment in Europe is not a new problem. The problem is to obtain the cash in the first place. Try to walk into your bank and ask, say 20k€ in cash: you will be subjected to what amounts to a strict interrogation in which you'll be asked why you need it, who will receive it, etc. Nevermind withdrawing it from an ATM of course...
That and the Gestapo-esque KYC rules banks have to implement, and forced banking has effectively been a thing in Europe for a couple decades now.
Me, I withdraw the weekly limit from my ATM, week in and week out. Been doing it for years. When I need to pay for something I don't want banks or the state to know about, I have a big buffer of cash in my safe to draw from.
This is what you have to do in free countries now. It don't feel too free when you actually try to exercise you freedom to do whatever you please with your own fucking money...
Use Monero, use Monero, use Monero.
"Cash is outlawed. Let's use a Ponzi scheme instead."
Hmm, you know what? Somehow I think the solution is neither of those things.
Proprietary money is a scam but Monero is libre software, private.
Supposedly this legislation also bans anonymous cryptocurrency.
Like that's ever stopped torrenting or Tor.
Ok limiting anonymous cash payments is bad for privacy but wtf is limiting cash payments altogether???
Anonymity is very important.
Here's a example why, that recently happened to a workmate:
He applied for a mortgage to buy a house. The application was denied 3 times, despite his having been employed at the same place for 20 years, paid all his bills on time and never received so much as a parking ticket. Finally, after insisting heavily and threatening to sue, his bank provided the reason why: his purchasing habits included too much alcohol.
Or said another way: the bank watched what he purchased when doing his groceries for years and quietly classified him as a wino and potential deadbeat.
I can tell you, when I do my groceries, and back when I still smoked, I never paid for alcohol or tobacco with anything other than cash, for that very reason. The only things I pay for with plastic paint the portrait of a boring working stiff with no habits out of the ordinary. For the rest, it's cash-only.
And if you want another example of why anonymity is important: a few years ago, I sought the help of an underground surgeon to perform a certain type of surgery on me that my stupid doctors here refused to perform, despite my quality of life going to shit (it's a long story...)
Guess what: underground surgeons don't take credit cards. The man changed my life for the better but I certainly don't want my local health insurance to know about it. Was it illegal? Hell yes. Was it justified? Hell yes. Legal and right are two different things.
And similarly, I expected many women post Roe v. Wade would like to have the opportunity to get an abortion out of state anonymously without going to jail.
That's why anonymous payments are essential: they are the last rampart between you and unjust laws and prejudice.
I didn't say anything against anonymity. It is very important for me. It's just fighting anonymity makes sense and everyone here knows why the government does it but fighting cash itself is kinda hilarious. That's what I wanted to point out. Killing it will kill several core human rights. Also that "purchase habits" thing is highly illegal here where I live afaik and I can only imagine how crucial anonymity is in "worse" countries. Tbh sometimes I can't even believe what people say about their countries. It's going beyond fantasy at this point.
Beware on your next trip to Netherlands, where some bars refuse cash and conceal their contempt for cash (reference)
I just linked your post from that one because it fits well with the story.
(edit) BTW, I would like to see your workmate’s story published in a blog that serves better as a reference. It needs more exposure in a venue that’s not quasi temporary. I would even print hardcopies of it to distribute to cashless bar owners. So a nicely typeset PDF would be useful.
How will they enforce it? I'm sure big/medium businesses will comply, but how can you track a cash transaction between private citizens?
Furthermore in the country where I live (Italy, one of EU founding members) more than 60% of independent professionals (partite iva) evade/elude taxes in some way or another, and it's very common (so common that every Italian experienced it many times in their lives, me included) for small businesses and professionals to offer you a slight discount if you pay cash under the table (no receipt, so no taxes) and, even if we have an entire police force dedicated to financial crimes, the submerged economy is just so big that they can't deal with it now, imagine when they'll have to arrest/fine everybody that accepts more than €3000 in cash.
What somebody writes on a piece of paper and what happens in the real world are 2 very distinct things, many stores in Italy don't accept credit cards even if it's against them law, and only a minuscule fraction of them gets fined.
The EU has extremely nazi-esque control on the private financial life of its citizens (the state monitors your bank account, to open a bank account you need to give every info about u in the future they'll ask for your DNA probably, if you withdraw/deposit a "suspect" amount of money our IRS will come after your ass, ane you need to prove your innocence basically guilty untill proven otherwise, ecc, there are a thousand examples, I'm sure EU citizens can relate) but I can't see how they'll be able to track pieces of paper.
TLDR I can't even see how they will be able to enforce this law, especially when we talk about small businesses/independent contractors, and the situation gets even funnier when its a transaction between 2 private individuals.
I've worked in many EU countries and the feeling I often got is that in Italy, we are more advanced in fighting tax evasion and elusion.
Keep in mind that in switzerland for example there is no cap to cash transaction
In Germany and Austria often is difficult to pay with card because they don't accept it
I've seen Russian in Vienna going to luxury stores with literally stacks of money
The US has the same rules, and are a driving force for this. They will enforce the rules the same as they do now for 10k payments. If you want clean money in a bank or if you want to travel with the money, or if you're just randomly stopped and have the money on you, you will be forced to prove its provenance or it will be seized.
This is already how it works in the EU, UK, Canada, and of course the USA.
The cash itself isn't the problem, it's getting that cash into a "clean" system where it can be used to buy anything that isn't cash. And with everything being non-cash on purpose because of these Nazi laws, you essentially have worthless paper you can't do anything with.
Enforceability varies depending on the scenario. Some countries have law that holds employers accountable for tax evaded by workers. Employers obviously won’t gamble, so they refuse to pay cash and cryptocurrency wages because they are scared shitless of being accountable for an employee’s evasion.
I demanded cryptocurrency payment and my employer refused on that basis. I intended to continue declaring it properly and just wanted a bit of freedom from bank dependency, but nothing could overcome the employer’s fears.
How will they enforce it? I'm sure big/medium businesses will comply, but how can you track a cash transaction between private citizens?
Because that is not the point of the laws.
Infact the NL implementation of the laws specifically says it is for business to business and business to consumer.
There is no mention of private transactions.Indeed national laws don’t generally limit p2p cash, but the EU law encroaches on that AFAICT.
How will they enforce it? I’m sure big/medium businesses will comply, but how can you track a cash transaction between private citizens?
In the reporting I've seen there is a specific exception for private sales anyway. The example they give is that privately buying or selling a used car should remain possible.
Oh don't worry. If you try to deposit it at a bank, they'll start asking questions right away on how you got the money. Unless you never bring it into the "official" system, the financial surveillance system will find it.
Interestingly enough the €3k is, when converted to USD, almost exactly what I paid for, in cash, to buy my Street Triple a few weeks ago. I was weary of giving a ton of cash to some random stranger, and wanted to do a cashier's check. He didn't know what that was.
This makes me wonder, are cashier's checks considered cash under this rule in the EU?
I had to look up cashier's check and it does not sound familiar at all. But searching a bit further it is a thing that exists, seems to be called Bank Check around here, it's just kind of expensive to use.
It's much more usual to pay in cash or use an account transfer (SEPA transfer) which is usually free, but with the delay of the transfer one of the parties usually takes a risk.
This year, in relation to the rule the post is about, they also forced banks that were dragging their feet to start supporting instant transfers.
I don't ultimately know the answer to your question though. I suspect the banks have to ask you for the origin, as if you turned up with 10k in cash, but I couldn't find anything definitive in the time I was searching around.
Cashier’s checks existed in Belgium a few years ago but I heard they are under fire and will be discontinued at some point.
Personal checks seem to be non-existent but I heard they can be requested but the banks give some resistance and try to steer people away from it. They only work domestically. I think if you gave a Belgian personal check to a Belgian, they would not generally know what to do with it.
Impulsive donations have been relatively killed off because cash donations are banned (I think because scammers impersonate charities). So that leaves check and electronic payment. Oxfam does not (AFAIK) carry payment terminals. Checks would make sense, but they are taboo. So they have to ask for a bank transfer, which gives donors a chance to be lazy and forget about it.
I can't speak for all European countries, but at least in the Netherlands they're not a thing. We might still have money orders, which are similar, but I've never seen one used.
Instead we can just make instant bank transfers, even using a QR code, which you can generate in your own banking app and can be used with any other bank.
The point for me is that the government automatically seems to think that cash payments are for something illegal. And all of a sudden, the burden is on me to proof that it is not.
While technically speaking, paying with cash is a very legal way to pay and should not require any explanation at all. Nor should it be more difficult.
Of course, there is a limit, and I get that paying a 2 million dollar house in cash is reason to at least ask where that money came from. But 3000 dollars or 100000 are amounts of money that in my opinion do not deserve the same amount of checking.
A lot of random but legal stuff can be done with 10000 dollars of cash. And yes, sometimes you use cash because you don't want your identity known. Doesn't mean you are doing something illegal. If the government thinks it is illegal, they should open an investigation and proof it.
Instead they put the burden on you. Doesn't seem fair to me, and a limitation on my personal freedom to spend money however I like.
Not to mention, even things that are legal now, could be made illegal by governments to come, and dictators or oppressive regimes will have no problems with checking logs to see which assholes did something that goes against their values in the past. For that reason alone, governments should only be tracking the minimum amount of information they need.
Money laundering is a real issue so I understand why they would like to do something like this. Having read through the comments here I can see that a lot of people are opposed but I don't really get why.