A lot of small businesses get caught up in structuring charges. The IRS requires banks to report deposits of greater than $10,000. But it's illegal to break u

A lot of small businesses get caught up in structuring charges. The IRS requires banks to report deposits of greater than $10,000. But it's illegal to break up a large deposit into multiple deposits that are less than $10,000. (IANAL, so I'm not sure if you have to do this with the intent of actually avoiding the reporting requirement.) For lots of small businesses in cash-heavy markets (e.g., gas stations or convenience stores), it's pretty easy to end up making a series of $8000 deposits and end up being charged with structuring. Regardless of whether you can beat the charge, the cost of having to defend yourself is punishment enough. Of course, you can argue that this isn't really common --- most people aren't small business owners who happen to be making just under $10,000 every week. But the point is that even though each of these laws ends up targeting a small fraction of people, there are enough of them that everyone ends up violating a few of them at some point.