8 ms·

I think the government, holds to benefit from this, and there might be no need of lobbying. Any transaction in cash for such a high amount, is intentionally don

I think the government, holds to benefit from this, and there might be no need of lobbying. Any transaction in cash for such a high amount, is intentionally done to keep the transaction off-book (and avoid taxes). There is little reason, why one would go through the inconvenience of managing so much cash, when a digital transaction is so much more ergonomical. India too is aggressively trying to achieve this. One of their rather bold attempts, called demonetization, happened a few years back, but it failed. However, in principle, I agree with the idea of having a cashless economy, so that government has data to see who is lying in their tax returns.

ajsnigrutin 7y ago
> However, in principle, I agree with the idea of having a cashless economy, so that government has data to see who is lying in their tax returns. This is really bad, because it prevents any kind of privacy. Want to buy a huge dildo from HugeDildos Inc.? Now you can just pay with cash. With cashless economies, you will now have their company name on your bank statements. And this is just a stupid example. What do you do in a case where you have legalized Marijuana at a state level and illegal at federal level (like in us). You can sell it in your state, but you cannot get a bank account. And what happens if there's a blackout? How do you buy food?
- icebraining 7y ago
  I'm not a fan of the bill, but it is only restricting payments over $10 000. You can still buy dildos with cash, unless it's gem-encrusted or something like that.
  - ajsnigrutin 7y ago
    That's just the first step. They lowered the limit to 420eur for independent contractors and companies here in Slovenia. They wanted to lower it to 50eur, but luckily failed.
    - otherme123 7y ago
      In Spain you cannot pay anything over 1000€ in cash. The discourse is well known, and in HN terms is like this: "why would I want PGP or SSL? Only if you want to do bad things you need that level of privacy". So "Why would anybody want to pay cash if he is doing everything within the law?"
  - feanaro 7y ago
    That's almost certainly how it starts, but they will inevitably try to restrict it more if this succeeds.
  - islon 7y ago
    First they came for the big purchases, and I did not speak out because I was not a big spender. Then they came for the food/clothing purchases, and I did not speak out because I had my credit/debit card. Then they came for huge dildos, and there was no one left to speak for me.
sumedh 7y ago
> called demonetization, happened a few years back, but it failed. It failed because it was designed to fail from the start, the govt introduced higher denomination notes (2000 Rs) which is a boon for money laundering.
epiphanitus 7y ago
Just noticed the 10k ceiling. That would make sense. For whatever reason I thought the proposed law was more restrictive than it actually was. I guess the late hour here is taking its toll.
CPLX 7y ago
> I agree with the idea of having a cashless economy Just remember that a cashless economy is one where you must secure permission from a person you can’t see and have never met every time you wish to acquire food, shelter, or clothing
- themacguffinman 7y ago
  That's just a normal environment that most middle class people who use debit/credit cards are already used to.
  - CogitoCogito 7y ago
    > That's just a normal environment that most middle class people who use debit/credit cards are already used to. No it is _not_ the normal environment. He said "you must secure permission" from a third party. This is not true for those who use debit/credit cards because they also have the choice to use cash as well. A side note: cash and cashless work great with one another. If your card stops working some reason, you are still able to use cash. If you don't want to carry cash one day, you can use a card. I find it very frustrating that they are constantly pitted against each other when they are in no way incompatible.
    - nine_k 7y ago
      Not much choice if your employer transfers your wages to your bank account anyway. To get hold of the money, you need to use a debit card, a check, or the service of a bank teller. In all cased, a third party, or several, is involved. It's a bit like in ancient Sparta, where the currency was mandated to be iron, so that large cash transactions would become cumbersome, and would be very visible.
      - gruez 7y ago
        >Not much choice if your employer transfers your wages to your bank account anyway. I don't think gp was talking about not requiring permission ever. He was talking about not requiring permission on a per transaction basis.
nickjj 7y ago
> Any transaction in cash for such a high amount, is intentionally done to keep the transaction off-book (and avoid taxes) What if you wanted to buy a $25,000 car in cash from a dealership? That's not intentionally avoiding taxes. It's trying to get a better deal. It's not unreasonable to want to avoid keeping a lot of money in a checking account in the US. They offer 0% interest rates. It doesn't make sense to have large sums of money sitting there. Why let the bank profit off your money if they aren't going to return some of it back to you for letting them use your money to make them more money.
- occamrazor 7y ago
  Why would the dealership offer a better deal for cash payment than for s check/bank transfer, unless they want to underreport the sale price and the taxes owed?
  - ckuhl 7y ago
    Not paying a middleman a percentage of the transaction would have some value to it.
  - nickjj 7y ago
    A check would likely be the same deal as cash. But there's no incentive to keep that amount of money sitting around in a checking account. I don't think a dealership would try to under report the transaction for tax evasion purposes. There's too much risk. The customer will get a receipt for the real amount they paid, and it's also very possible the customer will report the transaction on their taxes as a business write off.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      > I don't think a dealership would try to under report the transaction for tax evasion purposes. Ah yes, the famed honor and integrity that the car dealership profession is known for. > customer will report the transaction on their taxes as a business write off Businesses don't do this. Unless they're money laundering fronts, businesses don't buy stuff in actual physical cash unless they have to, and they know that any cash discount would be from under-reporting the sales tax and that recording the transaction would be bad for both sides.
CalRobert 7y ago
I sometimes do medium to large transactions in cash so I don't have to pay things like credit card fees. $600 set of tires? Why should visa get $18 (3%)? I don't mind stopping by the ATM to save that. Also, maybe I just don't want everyone knowing everywhere I spend my money. I tried to get a mortgage a bit over a year ago and they wanted to see statements from all my accounts for the last 6 months. It's none of their damn business if I spend 500 a month on champagne or 500 on church donations.
- QuotedForTruth 7y ago
  Them looking at your accounts is more about income than expenses. They want to see how much money you're making and that it is recurring. They don't want to give you a loan based on you having $x and then find out the only reason you have that is because your friend gave you a loan for it. That would make you less likely to pay the mortgage back because you have other liabilities. So if you have a cash deposit they will want an explanation.
  - CalRobert 7y ago
    In your perfectly dispassionate banking office this is true, but in reality, people will judge, even subconsciously (though the subconscious bit is giving too much credit). To give a true, recent, example, I might not like having the loan officer know about my donations to the Green Party - they could be right wing, after all! Also, some places are just small and people gossip.
    - Faark 7y ago
      For the last tax filing that needed a voucher for income, I blacked out pretty much everything except the amounts received / sent. Is this not allowed in such a case for you in the US?
      - vonmoltke 7y ago
        Tax statements are sufficient for proving income. Banks also need verification of the origin of funds for the down payment and closing costs, which is where the other statements come in.
icu 7y ago
Cash is freedom and privacy. Cashless is tyranny and scrutiny. This is why we say innocent until proven guilty in the West. There is a social contract that is is better to let a murderer go free than to let an innocent person rot in prison for a crime they didn't commit. The same social contract exists in society for cash. Cash exists so that we have privacy and freedom at the cost of criminal activity.
- torified 7y ago
  Cashless can also be anonymous, but that won't be presented as an option of course. You are so right about the innocent until proven guilty.
akimball 7y ago
The inevitable consequence is absolute despotism. Without privacy, there can be no freedom. I don't think that is a worthwhile price to pay in order to preserve an obsolete system of government funding. Especially since it won't work anyhow.

ajsnigrutin 7y ago

> However, in principle, I agree with the idea of having a cashless economy, so that government has data to see who is lying in their tax returns. This is really bad, because it prevents any kind of privacy. Want to buy a huge dildo from HugeDildos Inc.? Now you can just pay with cash. With cashless economies, you will now have their company name on your bank statements. And this is just a stupid example. What do you do in a case where you have legalized Marijuana at a state level and illegal at federal level (like in us). You can sell it in your state, but you cannot get a bank account. And what happens if there's a blackout? How do you buy food?

icebraining 7y ago
I'm not a fan of the bill, but it is only restricting payments over $10 000. You can still buy dildos with cash, unless it's gem-encrusted or something like that.
- ajsnigrutin 7y ago
  That's just the first step. They lowered the limit to 420eur for independent contractors and companies here in Slovenia. They wanted to lower it to 50eur, but luckily failed.
  - otherme123 7y ago
    In Spain you cannot pay anything over 1000€ in cash. The discourse is well known, and in HN terms is like this: "why would I want PGP or SSL? Only if you want to do bad things you need that level of privacy". So "Why would anybody want to pay cash if he is doing everything within the law?"
- feanaro 7y ago
  That's almost certainly how it starts, but they will inevitably try to restrict it more if this succeeds.
- islon 7y ago
  First they came for the big purchases, and I did not speak out because I was not a big spender. Then they came for the food/clothing purchases, and I did not speak out because I had my credit/debit card. Then they came for huge dildos, and there was no one left to speak for me.

sumedh 7y ago

> called demonetization, happened a few years back, but it failed. It failed because it was designed to fail from the start, the govt introduced higher denomination notes (2000 Rs) which is a boon for money laundering.

epiphanitus 7y ago

Just noticed the 10k ceiling. That would make sense. For whatever reason I thought the proposed law was more restrictive than it actually was. I guess the late hour here is taking its toll.

CPLX 7y ago

> I agree with the idea of having a cashless economy Just remember that a cashless economy is one where you must secure permission from a person you can’t see and have never met every time you wish to acquire food, shelter, or clothing

themacguffinman 7y ago
That's just a normal environment that most middle class people who use debit/credit cards are already used to.
- CogitoCogito 7y ago
  > That's just a normal environment that most middle class people who use debit/credit cards are already used to. No it is _not_ the normal environment. He said "you must secure permission" from a third party. This is not true for those who use debit/credit cards because they also have the choice to use cash as well. A side note: cash and cashless work great with one another. If your card stops working some reason, you are still able to use cash. If you don't want to carry cash one day, you can use a card. I find it very frustrating that they are constantly pitted against each other when they are in no way incompatible.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    Not much choice if your employer transfers your wages to your bank account anyway. To get hold of the money, you need to use a debit card, a check, or the service of a bank teller. In all cased, a third party, or several, is involved. It's a bit like in ancient Sparta, where the currency was mandated to be iron, so that large cash transactions would become cumbersome, and would be very visible.
    - gruez 7y ago
      >Not much choice if your employer transfers your wages to your bank account anyway. I don't think gp was talking about not requiring permission ever. He was talking about not requiring permission on a per transaction basis.

nickjj 7y ago

> Any transaction in cash for such a high amount, is intentionally done to keep the transaction off-book (and avoid taxes) What if you wanted to buy a $25,000 car in cash from a dealership? That's not intentionally avoiding taxes. It's trying to get a better deal. It's not unreasonable to want to avoid keeping a lot of money in a checking account in the US. They offer 0% interest rates. It doesn't make sense to have large sums of money sitting there. Why let the bank profit off your money if they aren't going to return some of it back to you for letting them use your money to make them more money.

occamrazor 7y ago
Why would the dealership offer a better deal for cash payment than for s check/bank transfer, unless they want to underreport the sale price and the taxes owed?
- ckuhl 7y ago
  Not paying a middleman a percentage of the transaction would have some value to it.
- nickjj 7y ago
  A check would likely be the same deal as cash. But there's no incentive to keep that amount of money sitting around in a checking account. I don't think a dealership would try to under report the transaction for tax evasion purposes. There's too much risk. The customer will get a receipt for the real amount they paid, and it's also very possible the customer will report the transaction on their taxes as a business write off.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    > I don't think a dealership would try to under report the transaction for tax evasion purposes. Ah yes, the famed honor and integrity that the car dealership profession is known for. > customer will report the transaction on their taxes as a business write off Businesses don't do this. Unless they're money laundering fronts, businesses don't buy stuff in actual physical cash unless they have to, and they know that any cash discount would be from under-reporting the sales tax and that recording the transaction would be bad for both sides.

CalRobert 7y ago

I sometimes do medium to large transactions in cash so I don't have to pay things like credit card fees. $600 set of tires? Why should visa get $18 (3%)? I don't mind stopping by the ATM to save that. Also, maybe I just don't want everyone knowing everywhere I spend my money. I tried to get a mortgage a bit over a year ago and they wanted to see statements from all my accounts for the last 6 months. It's none of their damn business if I spend 500 a month on champagne or 500 on church donations.

QuotedForTruth 7y ago
Them looking at your accounts is more about income than expenses. They want to see how much money you're making and that it is recurring. They don't want to give you a loan based on you having $x and then find out the only reason you have that is because your friend gave you a loan for it. That would make you less likely to pay the mortgage back because you have other liabilities. So if you have a cash deposit they will want an explanation.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  In your perfectly dispassionate banking office this is true, but in reality, people will judge, even subconsciously (though the subconscious bit is giving too much credit). To give a true, recent, example, I might not like having the loan officer know about my donations to the Green Party - they could be right wing, after all! Also, some places are just small and people gossip.
  - Faark 7y ago
    For the last tax filing that needed a voucher for income, I blacked out pretty much everything except the amounts received / sent. Is this not allowed in such a case for you in the US?
    - vonmoltke 7y ago
      Tax statements are sufficient for proving income. Banks also need verification of the origin of funds for the down payment and closing costs, which is where the other statements come in.

icu 7y ago

Cash is freedom and privacy. Cashless is tyranny and scrutiny. This is why we say innocent until proven guilty in the West. There is a social contract that is is better to let a murderer go free than to let an innocent person rot in prison for a crime they didn't commit. The same social contract exists in society for cash. Cash exists so that we have privacy and freedom at the cost of criminal activity.

torified 7y ago
Cashless can also be anonymous, but that won't be presented as an option of course. You are so right about the innocent until proven guilty.

akimball 7y ago

The inevitable consequence is absolute despotism. Without privacy, there can be no freedom. I don't think that is a worthwhile price to pay in order to preserve an obsolete system of government funding. Especially since it won't work anyhow.