Live data from Hacker News

Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands

rijksoverheid.nl

681–690 of 802 posts

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

#681
post #613
post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a very small universe to assume that only illegal activity is conducted with 10k in currency.

I keep asking for legitimate uses of 10k in cash but the only answer I get is that it’s none of my business. It raises questions.

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

#682
post #549
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where it comes from? None of your business. That ridiculously wrong. If you got a huge stash of cash and can’t justify where it comes from… well yeah, it screams undeclared work or illegal business. Do you have other legit explanations?

None of your business.

As I thought, no legit explanations besides illegal activity.

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

#683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A stolen credit card isn't any different.

Considering that the last time one of my CC numbers was stolen, it was used to pay for air conditioning service, I'm sure that is also a concern for tradespeople!

No pin? No 3d secure?

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

#684
We have this limit in France for years now.

Another useful one is that in order to pay for a house you have to wire the amount to a notary who holds the amount in escrow on a special bank account managed by an entity similar to the national central bank (Caisse des Dépôts). You do not need to worry about not being paid, or being scammed.

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

#685

We have this limit in France for years now. Another useful one is that in order to pay for a house you have to wire the amount to a notary who holds the amount in escrow on a special bank account managed by an entity similar to the national central bank ( Caisse des Dépôts ). You do not need to worry about not being paid, or being scammed.

There is a somewhat famous case in Germany, where an elderly couple's house got sold without them knowing, because someone changed the paper deed, and some scummy business man confirmed that he got the money in cash.

They better introduce systems like this in Germany too, but they rather drown in mafia related crime than admitting that their analog way of doing business and clinging on to cash is a mistake.

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

#686
post #681
post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very small universe to assume that only illegal activity is conducted with 10k in currency.

I keep asking for legitimate uses of 10k in cash but the only answer I get is that it’s none of my business. It raises questions.

Because it _is_ none of your business. But feel free to review the thread, there are plenty of examples why having large cash reserves and transaction may be helpful for a given situation.

The argument for reporting is equivalent to "you have nothing to hide" and privacy. This is another aspect of privacy.

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

#687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it as the value of cash isn't only the value, but also in liquidity and granularity. Regardless of whether you have a $50k car or diamond, if you want to buy some groceries you're gonna need to liquidate because no one is gonna have a diamond worth $50k - $25 handy.

It's a bag of diamonds... there might be 50 $1k diamonds in there. And one 1k diamond can probably be exchanged for 50 packs of cigarettes... And one $20 pack of cigarettes can be split into 20 $1 cigarettes... Sure - it isn't quite as easy as cash, but it doesn't seem far off...

This is a nice theory, but doesn't really hold up in practice. For bartering to work, the other party has to hold an interest in what you have, a $1 bill and $1 cigarette are not interchangeable in that sense. If you want to buy bread but the baker doesn't smoke, what good would your cigarettes do for him?

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

#688
post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another part of this thread, somebody quoted a section where it listed cash, crypto, gold, platinum, and precious stones as all being part of the legislation.

Crypto can only be controlled at the legal conversion point to/from fiat. Because otherwise it's just a packet over the Internet. Mind you, I said legal. Because black markets have always existed to fill the niche prohibited by the government. These days the black market also lets you bypass KYC laws for crypto. Legislators up in their ivory tower have always held the misguided belief that laws can direct human behav…

> Crypto can only be controlled

Cash isn’t really controlled either. If my neighbor wants to sell me his guitar for $10,000 I can take a bundle of cash to him and get the guitar.

> the misguided belief that laws can direct human behaviour

Laws can direct human behavior.

> People will always favour the currency with the least amount of hoops to jump through

I mostly agree with this. It’s a lot easier for me to use US dollars (directly or indirectly through a debit or credit card) than pesos or rubles or yen. So I spend US dollars mostly through a credit card because it’s easy, fast, has generous rewards, and protects me from shitty sellers.

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

#689
post #438
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The libertarian-minded tend to think that this kind of freedom is necessary to prevent government overreach and oppression, but in reality the bulk of the people making large cash transactions are either avoiding taxes (ripping off you, the taxpayer) or participating in organized crime (human trafficking, weapons/drugs/counterfeit black markets, etc). I would also argue that the only people making cash transactions t…

The same could be said about encryption.

Except it can't, since everyone regularly uses and benefits from encryption.

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

#690
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said about encryption.

Except it can't, since everyone regularly uses and benefits from encryption.

Specifically the state likes to say "We need access to encryption private keys because of terrorists or to save the kids. If you don't have anything to hide, there's no reason you'd oppose this". [0]

So if a lot of bad people pay for things with big sums of cash, then why would you oppose this limit, unless you're a bad person. Meh.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/08/whatsapp-...

Post reply on HN