Have you ever given someone a gift of food or beverage as a way of saying thank you for a financially meaningful favor? Have you ever given a gift card or store

Have you ever given someone a gift of food or beverage as a way of saying thank you for a financially meaningful favor? Have you ever given a gift card or stored value card produced by a non-bank institution? Been on the receiving end of a transaction of that nature? Congratulations, you may (at the discretion of the prosecutor) have already committed the crime of money laundering. Money laundering is an interesting crime in that a series of otherwise legal transactions may be considered laundering if the source of the funds was tainted in the eyes of prosecutor in any of several ways. Most usually by being the result of an enterprise that is criminal in nature; such as attempting to avoid taxes... So as with many financial crimes these days; the criminality is entirely dependent on the political power of the accused. An Apple or Google is not committing money laundering by structuring their transactions to avoid having their revenue streams being tainted with taxability. But if you or I were to try such a thing...