Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands • Hacker News Board

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#531

Post by thiht » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:28 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #432

thiht wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer to this is very simple: none of your business. It kinda is. Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally). That the only argument you can find is « it’s none of your business » doesn’t exactly play against this ruling.

> Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally). Since when? Maybe I just want to buy a handsome dog that won a show?

What does it have to do with cash? Ever heard of bank transfers? Spending $10,000 cash sounds ridiculously unsafe for both parties.

> Since when?

Drug deals, money laundering schemes, theft, ransoms, etc. I fail to see non illegal way to obtain $10,000 cash. And if you can get it legally, just do bank transfers instead

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#532

Post by gunapologist99 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:28 PM UTC

ffhhttt wrote: post #426

gunapologist99 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> show that you sold products there's zero issues well, there might be one small issue! how can you 'show you sold products'? after all, you sold them!! isn't the cash sufficient to show you sold products? hasn't it been sufficient for thousands of years?

Every single country in the EU has VAT. If you’re yearly revenue is to low (not that likely for commercial farmers) you still have to give out receipts for every sale. Also have you heard about bookeping? It’s also a thing that has existed for thousands of years.

So a farmer is giving out receipts; how does that help the farmer at the bank?

To sum up, what is the standard of records that the bank will accept? Is there one?

does the bank say, "we see you wrote that you sold 20 boxes of produce on Saturday"

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#533

Post by intotheabyss » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:28 PM UTC

jurynulifcation wrote: post #478

intotheabyss wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire thread is about people not being able to go across borders with x amount of cash without declaring it. I could walk across a border with 100k in stablecoins and never declare it, and then have immediate access to those funds like I would cash. My point is to show the absurdity of these kinds of laws.

You could also just carry a bank card across borders and withdraw cash when you land, no need to play around with known scams :)

How is USDC a scam? Or how about DAI? Also, when I say stablecoins, I am also referring to CBDC's. Anyways, not everyone has a bank account (your viewpoint is very Western centric) and having to withdraw cash in a foreign country is just poor UX in the digital age.

And what about refugees fleeing war, like Ukrainians in 2022. There were many many cases where Ukrainians had zero access to their banks while in Poland. Having 12 words, or a set of 5 trusted guardians would be a much better way of securing your wealth than trusting some third party custodian in a city under siege.

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#534

Post by figassis » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:28 PM UTC

These decisions reek of ignorance. Banking is not as frictionless as people seem to think. Many law abiding people have issues opening bank accounts, maybe they're immigrants, maybe their name fuzzy matches someone on the ofac list, maybe their bank decided that that last $10000 payment was unusual for this customer and blocked their account and started asking for documents that they might not have in a timely manner, like utility bill (but you're living with a friend), or a credit card statement (but banks won't approve of one for you because you have no way to be grandfathered in), or you have your money on SVB and it blew up and you had to withdraw/borrow cash to make payroll (transferring would take too long and might fail). There is so much mindless automation that thinks it's correct, and so many banking industry employees that can only tell you "well, the system said...", that I fear this will break many people's lives.

Also remember that people really do live very different lives that are perfectly legal, that's what freedom is. This is deciding to make conformity into the law.

Finally, my greatest fear is that this (and many distopian policies I've seen recently from Europe and the US) is creating the justification that many authoritarian regimes (esp. in Africa) have always hoped for to irreversibly break democracy and throw human rights out the window. I know we should be able to solve our own issues, but...we haven't, and this will realistically make it almost impossible to do now.

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#535

Post by JW_00000 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #120

The very worth watching Milton Friedman PBS series about the merits of free markets was called “Freedom to Choose” for a good reason. For such markets to function you must be free to choose what you do to earn money and free to choose on what goods and services you wish to spend it on. Much of the series is arguing about what happens when governments attempt to control this dynamic leading to the exact opposite of th…

This system does not attempt to influence what you spend your money on, except when you're laundering money or want to use it buy illegal things.

Not saying such systems don't also exist (e.g. food stamps, tax reliefs, different VAT regimes), but this is not it.

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#536

Post by herbst » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #506

herbst wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recently bought a car for around 4000€ in cash. I even went to a ATM to withdraw money first. Cash is, after all, the only instant and feeless transaction method. Why would I want to pay % fee or wait up to several days for a transaction like that? Imagine I bought the car on Friday afternoon. The seller would get the money earliest on Monday. Why would the seller simply trust me? So how would I buy a car on a…

> Cash is, after all, the only instant and feeless transaction method. Bank transfers in the EU are instant, and there are no fees for personal accounts. > Imagine I bought the car on Friday afternoon. The seller would get the money earliest on Monday. No, the seller would get the money before they could even blink. I have accounts at 2 unrelated banks. I have my online banking apps set up that whenever I get a depos…

Well Switzerland has SEPA but realtime SEPA transactions are usually only available within the same bank. And I havent heard of any bank solving any Sepa transactions on the weekend here

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#537

Post by me_me_me » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #445

dealuromanet wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean they do nothing? They have a redundant microphone array that can track sound with high precision and a camera that can be used to automatically issue fines. Just point the hardware at the people walking about or congregating and see who is saying things The Cabinet doesn't like to hear. Or maybe even who isn't saying enough of what the Cabinet wants to hear. Why get rid of a perfectly functioning and…

You realize someone would actually need to repurpose them to do such things, operation which would cost money and technical know how, right? They don't come with those capabilities out of the box. It's just such a weird argument that you're making. It's like saying that once roads disappear all the speed cameras are going to be repurposed to take pictures of you walking about to match facial data or something. Techni…

this thinking stems from different political environment.

In EU we still have some power over politicians. US with its cemented dual party is basically a fasade of democracy. Thats why US people are so anti government.

Everything is always set in us vs them context.

Lets hope this trend will not affect eu countries too much.

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#538

Post by chollida1 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

NorwegianDude wrote: post #515

chollida1 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am confused by your post. What are some good reasons to allow cash payments above 3000 EUR? Privacy would be the biggest and most important reason and probably enough to end the conversation right here. But we can also include - ease of payment. Count out money and you're done. - vendor gets their money immediately, no 5 day hold like there could be on a check or money transfer -

Ease of payment? Paying with a card is much simpler and faster. Take your card, phone or watch and hold it to the terminal for one second and you're done. It's not normal for payouts to take 5 days. In Norway it's the next day.

I was assuming payment for things like contractors or furnace repair that don't walk around with visa terminals.

I agree that in a grocery store, it is far easier to pay with a card.

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#539

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

xxs wrote: post #319

reaperducer wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the US version of the events. It's always interesting to watch any EU-specific topic come up on HN and see people on one end of the EU assume that their lives, local laws, and customs are exactly the same as the lives, local laws, and customs on the other end of the EU. And then when a deviation comes up, they assume it's an American thing. It seems like people in the EU should explore their neighboring count…

Like mentioned I have not seen any cheques in use for 20 or so years. I have not seen 'personal' cheque books since the Euro has been introduced. >Or at least stop assuming that the EU is one homogenous society modeled after their own personal experiences. How was the assuming - "I don't know all EU member states in detail". I have lived (as in years) in several EU member states. Visited (travel) across most of them…

Thank you for proving my point.

My wife, currently in southern France, was given a check last week, and tells me she's glad that she brought cash with her.

As I stated, your experiences are not the only experiences. And again, you just assumed that any deviation from your expectations makes it an American aberration. This is simply not true, and speaks to your limited experience and biases.

Re: Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

#540

Post by systems_glitch » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

nolok wrote: post #406

Loughla wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said to the other poster. I transact often over that amount to purchase old woodworking equipment. The people I work with often do not want to transact electronically for multiple reasons. The tax is paid, it's on the books, but they want cash. Why should that be limited?

Because a 80/20 rule is much better than having to chose between "everything is controlled" or "nothing is controlled", and that's essentially the two choices we have. It works just fine in most of europe since a very long time, and frankly people insisting to be paid in cash and then going out of their way to fully declare the taxes and source of the money is even weirded, why not take the easier shortcut. Of course…

Yeah our electronic transfer methods suck. Even between my business and personal accounts, doing a regular bank transfer, it takes several days. Literally faster to withdraw cash and drive it over.

Meanwhile, if you have to do a wire transfer for a large sum of money, and the bank screws it up, they have around 30 minutes to recall it before the wire is permanently completed.