Cash payment: Cash limits in Europe
www.evz.decross-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
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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.
It stops you from spending your money anonymously. Why is it the state’s business if you want to buy a hijab? Fine, they’re illegal to wear outside, but if it’s legal to wear inside I should be allowed to own one without scrutiny. But I also don’t trust the regime that outlawed them in the first place to let me do that.
I’m pretty sure you can get a hijab for under €3k…
At least I hope so, they don’t seem very expensive.
Sure, so swap it out with something that costs more than 3K.
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.
In my experience, charities try to get you on a recurrent donation nowadays instead of taking cash or transfers (although I am in the Netherlands, not Belgium). It’s terribly annoying because they take the “being lazy and forget about it” and weaponise it against you.
I get rid of them pretty quickly by saying I have no bank account. I might start adding to that “take cryptocurrency?” so they leave with the idea that maybe they should be open to cryptocurrency.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
EU. It’s the EU, not Europe.
Fixed
The European Union is not synonymous to Europe.
Welcome to the communist Europe! This is what the friendly left got us.
this poll shows it’s non-partisan:
https://layer8.space/@hyakinthos/112554837920009346
The left respects privacy far more than the right. But the left also has that high-taxation tendency. The outcome of that tug-of-war within left-leaning people results in ~73% embracing cash – just like the conservatives who don’t give a shit about privacy but have contempt for tax.
This has nothing to do with people… we’re talking about leftist govts that want to track what people own and what money is moved around in order to tax people more.
sees capitalism capitalisming capitalistly What is this, communism?
Artificial restrictions on currency is the literal opposite of capitalism.
Artificial restrictions on currency is compatible with capitalism. It’s a government policy that can exist within a capitalist mode of production. Communism doesnt have any currency or money to restrict.
This has nothing to do with communism or capitalism. They are economic systems and nothing more. It has everything to do with authoratarianism which is economic agnostic.
Were fighting the wrong fight here people
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…
I knew a guy who didn’t even have a bank account. He only accepted cash.
Good luck finding a job where your employer accepts to pay you in cash or check in Europe.
This depends on the industry. Domestic workers and builders are often paid in cash in Europe. Belgium even writes it in law that cash wages are prohibited if you work in an industry where that is uncommon. Strange (and discriminatory) law, but indeed white collar workers are legally blocked from cash payment while other industries are grandfathered.
He had a shop and taught workshops in his studio.
I’ve also heard a claim of someone going full bitcoin, back in ~2013
That is not a typical form of employment. I’m sure there are edge cases where that sort of thing is workable. But for most people who work for an employer, that’s not an option.
Besides, I’m almost certain people who have cash-only or Bitcoin-only forms of income will be repeatedly audited like nobody’s ever been audited. The taxman doesn’t like cash transactions. I know that because I have a few friend who run cafes and bars in France and Belgium, and they’re audited ALL.THE.FUCKING.TIME for one reason and one reason only: most bar patrons in those countries pay in cash, and it’s super-easy for bar owners to whisk some of that money away from the cash register.
Well, I must also say that I realize that a lot of these places hide revenue.
But it course that is necessary if you want to compete with larger companies that evade taxes.
That’s not because of the cash. Even white collar workers getting paid electronically get audited because Belgium has a very high audit rate. I heard the probability of getting audited in Belgium is around 50%. Belgian auditors are extremely ambitious and highly motivated. They are employed in high numbers. The only way to avoid being audited in Belgium is to not work in Belgium.
I bought a car for 30k cash in Europe very recently and received mone of these heartaches.
It was really easy, I withdrew my money, drove to te dealership. Handed him a bag of money, which he counted. He then gave me a receipt for €25,350 and my car.
What country was that? I heard about a Belgian who tried to withdraw €10k from her bank account. They refused and also called the police who interrogated her and made a report. Belgian banks have cash withdrawal limits written in the contract. Even pulling out €3k raises eyebrows in Belgium. So withdrawing €30k trouble-free would probably require withdrawing €2.5k once per week over the span of 12 weeks. Is the car seller willing to hold the car for a buyer that long?
Im in the eu and I did it one transaction. I was asked into a room for privacy due to the amount so I could put it away.
For the record I ws dodging taxes and was not inconvenienced.
Yes, and all they had to do to make it legal is to verify your identity, which they did.
Maybe, I dont recall but it definitely wasnt a hardship.
Use Monero, use Monero, use Monero.
The one currency to rule them all.
Supposedly this legislation also bans anonymous cryptocurrency.
Only to so called “hosted/custodial wallets” aka crypto banks or custodial exchanges. Non-custodial wallets/exchanges or p2p transactions are unaffected, because they’re impossible to stop or trace. Businesses accepting private crypto currencies should not be affected as long as they accept direct payments like MullvadVPN does.
Better but still pretty bad, in that case can only hope the software/trading ecosystems for p2p improve enough to be more generally viable and that once that happens there won’t be reactive legislation to stamp it out.
Like that’s ever stopped torrenting or Tor.
Spoken like a true bagholder. Cryptocurrencies are a ponzi scheme.
This is why you’ll have no privacy when cash is gone, as said below.
Your ponzi scheme won’t save you then. There are no technical solutions to a purely political problem.
But I’m already solving my problem with libre software. Which one of your comments give me a better solution?
So you are buying your groceries with that ponzi coin? Besides, if cash is made illegal cryptocurrencies are definitely also illegal and no legitimate business will accept them.
This gives no solution.
The solution is to vote for privacy preserving policies. The only thing tech will do is taking your money while promising something that is impossible to implement, leaving you with nothing. Technological solutions are fundamentally ill suited to solving this issue.
“Cash is outlawed. Let’s use a Ponzi scheme instead.”
Hmm, you know what? Somehow I think the solution is neither of those things.
I don’t think you know what a ponzi scheme is. A ponzi scheme is a situation where a business pays it’s previous investors with the money from it’s new investors… In a fairly launched crypto currency there is no business or other central entity distributing the coins so there is nothing to invest in and no one to pay you back. The only think you can “invest” in is the network itself and the only thing you can “invest” is the work of your computer to secure the network for which you will be rewarded with some coins. Every other good store of value in the world works the same. In order to obtain gold or silver you have to pointlessly dig in the ground searching for some useless metal whose only worth comes from it’s scarcity and being difficult to obtain. In that sense if crypto currencies are a ponzi scheme then so are silver, gold, diamonds, €/$/£ (paper or digital), stocks and everything else whose value doesn’t come from it’s intrinsic qualities.
If you don’t want to dig in the ground/use your computers work you can pay someone else to do it or just buy the metal/coin from them if they already acquired it. But if it’s so useless why would anyone spend their time, effort or intrinsically valuable things (like food, fuel, tools etc.) to acquire it? Because while it’s basic qualities don’t make it a good source of energy, food, heat, light, shelter, security, comfort, entertainment… non of the things we as humans value, they do make it an ideal candidate for a store of value a unit of account and a medium of exchange. That’s why people valued this metals for millennia and continue to do so. They don’t have value on their own, but in the context of the societal system we live in their intrinsic qualities make them invaluable. The value of gold, cash etc. came from it’s place in that system, crypto currencies are in many aspects an improvement on those intrinsic qualities that make gold and cash valuable so it’s only natural that they will replace the aforementioned in many areas of life.
Proprietary money is a scam but Monero is libre software, private.
No.
This is why you’ll have no privacy when cash is gone.
If cash stops existing in my lifetime and I have shit to buy privately, I might consider alternatives like monero. Until then, I‘ll avoid making crypto investors richer, thanks.
Fucking where.
Sadly it will likely take more dystopian actions from state actors like this for monero or other crypto to actually become more popular and usable on a day to day basis.
Someday it’ll happen though, and I can’t wait.
The war on cash is a war on privacy.
I’m a huge privacy advocate, but on this issue I’m with the regulators. 3k EUR is plenty. More than the harmonized monthly average salary of the EU, in fact, which sits at below 2,200 EUR (source).
So people who value their privacy that much can easily receive their salary in cash and take care about their daily expenses without compromising anything.
For the odd purchase beyond that, the integrity of our society prevails. Money laundering and tax evasion are a major concerns everywhere in the world. Your advocacy pro-privacy actively harms honest taxpayers and governing bodies.
That’s net (take-home pay), not gross. Tax is high enough that you need to double that figure (€4,400) to get the gross pay. And just wait till you account for inflation, which the EU cash limits apparently fail to account for.
People run around with smartphones, everyone needs to register at their residency address, most people casually pay by card/phone literally everywhere, e.g. you could tell how much they drunk on a Friday night and in what bar, but oh boy, no, no, no, lemmy needs to pay for car 20k in cash, so the car salesman could cheat on taxes.
Because of inflation, it’s not going to stay 3k. All rules of this type have fixed amounts that never get updated and every year encompass more transactions.
Anti-money laundering provisions in the EU have been adjusted several times though, so there’s a precedent.
It’s impossible to define the amount in relative terms such as “average EU monthly salary +25%”, because that would simply make it impractical in everyday use when the amount changes every month.
It’s not impossible. Indexes are published. This is what they do with rent in places where rent is controlled. Landlords cannot increase rent more than an index. So they have to do the math. And in this case it’s not even a variable baseline like rent, it’s fixed, so the calculation can also be published so people need not do any math.
Adjusted to give more leeway? Can you cite a source on this happening
I’ll find one for you later, just heading to the office. But from working as a financial auditor in the past, I know that the AML provision used to be 10k EUR for transfers abroad, and was later increased to 12.5k EUR.
Have you considered shoving a cactus up your asshole?
No, I had not. That’s certainly novel.
“I’m a huge privacy advocate unless your privacy is worth more than 3000€”
Wow you’re being down voted hard.
One of the problems with anonymous payments is that they can be used by foreigners with deep pockets, money laundering (which snowballs into much bigger problems), etc. I can understand why they’d push back so hard.
The problem with tracked payments is the loss of privacy and over control. Can understand why they’d push back so hard here too.
One of those issues with no good solutions in sight. Yet. Maybe. You basically have to pick your poison.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about the amount, it’s about the invasion of privacy and the control.
Ok then please tell me how that affects your privacy, and what level of control it gives someone?
Banks abuse our privacy in countless ways. This could fill a book. This policy amounts to forced banking. I boycott banks. Banks have us by the balls and they abuse that power. A bank recently told me (in effect) to fuck off if I don’t have a mobile phone number to give them.
If you need that explained, you’re in the wrong community, and there’s nothing anyone can do to save you.
So you don’t have an answer, that’s what I thought.
@youmaynotknow is spot on. But consider this a very basic primer on just a small fraction of privacy abuse by banks:
So there’s 22 privacy abuses by banks to get you started. And that just barely scratches the surface.
You can somewhat ignore paragraphs 15 and 23 in terms of privacy. OTOH privacy is hand-in-hand with control and paragraphs 15 & 23 reflect control being in the wrong hands.
I can’t but agree. 3k is more than enough to pay even for home stuff. You can buy plenty of things under 3k in a single purchase. And if you’re willing to buy further than that, then I’m sorry but you’ll need to put society first. If you’re willing to buy full cash a house, I’m gonna think you’re money laundering and you can go fuck yourself.
Give it a few more years of inflation and 3000€ will pay for a week’s worth of groceries for a family of 3.
It seems it doesn’t apply to person-to-person payments, only commercial. So I guess you could still buy a house from individual with cash. Whether they’d be willing to deal with the cash is another question.
I don’t know if this applies to the entire EU, but home purchases need to be notarized. You can’t just transfer a deed for a house without the government knowing.
Yo dog I got ur house
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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
Chat control wasn’t beat, it was postponed. The proposal will be back.
We beat it last time.
It will come back until we don’t.
So we keep coming back.