Currency Transaction Reporting for cash deposits greater than $10K has been a federal banking requirement since before the mid 1980s so no this law was not enacted after 9/11. The law is related to money laundering. Restaurants and other cash-based business can fill out paperwork to get an exemption, or higher threshold for completing the CTR on each deposit.
“The law is related to money laundering. Restaurants and other cash-based business can fill out paperwork to get an exemption.”
Ha!, I’m sure applying for such an exemption would subject that business to an audit and would not guarantee the granting of such an exemption in which case structuring laws would be still be applicable.
The government is a woefully corrupt criminal enterprise and any type of resistance is morally justified.
I know the Bank Secrecy Act has been around for decades, but I was under the impression that they changed it under the Patriot Act to catch "structuring" as a means of concealing transactions over $10,000.
According to this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act it is called The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (or BSA, or otherwise known as the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act) so yes; it’s been around since 1970. I think some additional provisions, reporting requirements, mostly what additional reporting was required by the banks were added under the Patriot Act, but that did not involve the cash transactions of $10,000 or more reporting requirement, as that is original to the 1970 law and thanks to Richard Nixon’s “War On Drugs”.
“Businesses that deal primarily in cash, such as bars and restaurants, can be exempted from having their deposits and withdrawals reported on CTRs, although this exemption is rarely granted. Instead, most banks have computer systems which retain information on CTRs and allow duplicate CTRs to be created seamlessly.”
I imagine the exemptions are granted mostly for large retail operations (like a Wal-Mart for example) and not small mom and pop shops.
But it seems to me that either their bank didn’t do a very good job in explaining the requirement and or retaining their CTR information on file so a new form would not have to be created with each cash deposit of $10k or more or the owners didn’t bother to find out what the requirements are.
“David Vocatura had made cash deposits of under $10,000 into the bakery’s account, but only after a bank employee called the bakery in 2007 to tell them that deposits of more than that amount required them to submit additional paperwork.”
“The terminology that they used was never really explained to us in detail,” David Vocatura told The Daily Signal. “We just thought it was an inconvenience or a nuisance for [the bank].”
And that was IMO perhaps Vocatura’s real mistake. If someone, like a bank teller tells you something is required but isn’t able to adequately explain why or how, you need keep asking questions and to talk to someone who can. That can be the bank manager, a lawyer or their accountant or, if they belonged to a local Chamber of Commerce or a business association, other restaurant owners.
I’m also curious as to why the bank didn’t bother to tell Vocatura about the reporting requirement until 2007 when this requirement has been around since 1970? Perhaps their business had grown around that time and they hadn’t needed to deposit amounts over the limit before then or…. they had been doing so previously, i.e. reporting and then decided to keep the amounts under $10k as to avoid having to report it. That would of course raise a red flag with bank regulators and the IRS if all of a sudden their bank deposits dropped to just under the $10k requirement and didn’t, how shall I say - “match up” to their business tax returns. But that would IMO have to be proved by the IRS before a civil forfeiture of assets.
I am not at all or in any way defending the seizure of their bank account assets by the IRS absent criminal charges and a guilty verdict after a trial and I believe that these types of civil forfeitures are un-Constitutional however, and I hate to say this, but the restaurant business is rather notorious for “skimming”, i.e. not reporting all of their cash receipts. I know this as I once worked for a very small accounting firm that also installed bookkeeping and POS systems and we had several small restaurants and bars as clients. We had at least two of these business owners ask us how they could circumvent the POS system as to not report some of the payments customers made in cash. They also played rather fast and loose with the tip reporting and not always to the server’s benefit. Just saying.
However, that’s not to say that this business is guilty of doing anything wrong and whether they are or aren’t, they are still entitled to due process.
FWIW:
ATR Endorses the DUE PROCESS Act to Reform Legalized Property Theft
Support the Due Process Act, H.R. 5283
The bill also codifies the Department of Justice’s March 2015 administrative changes related to the Internal Revenue Service’s egregious abuse of federal forfeiture and structuring laws. This provision ensures that no future administration will be able to reverse the policy and that innocent business owners will not see their bank accounts seized and subjected to forfeiture.
Contact your local Congresscritter and tell him or her you support H.R. 5283.