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EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

consilium.europa.eu

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Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#341

Post by Strom »

lultimouomo wrote: post #318
Strom wrote: post #174

Can someone explain to me how this 10K EUR limit can be enforced? What will stop the launderer from selling an item/service valued at 1K to a thousand anonymous customers who paid with cash? Surely they're not going to demand KYC for every tiny cash transaction? If they aren't, I can't see a limit to the number of fake customers you can come up with. Or is this just meant for cases where the business is already under…

It prevents people with lots of dirty money from paying expensive-but-unregistered-goods (i.e. not cars and houses) with cash from law abiding citizen; if they want the expensive stuff, they'll have to either find some other dishonest businessman to sell it to them (might be hard, depending on what you're buying, and increases the risk of being caught) or deposit the money in a bank to pay for it electronically (whic…

I think you raise a good point. In an ideal world this would mean that only more sophisticated criminals with access to money laundering would be able to use large amounts. An unsophisticated criminal can't just buy stuff from a law abiding citizen.

Remains to be seen how this will work out in practice. My guess is that most law abiding citizens won't even know that such a law exists. Your point still stands though.

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#342

Post by Teandw »

mort96 wrote: post #306
Teandw wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is that for that sort of money, it would be somewhat strange to "want" to pay in cash. You wouldn't walk 200 miles on foot to go meet a friend when you had a car on the driveaway?

> You wouldn't walk 200 miles on foot to go meet a friend when you had a car on the driveaway? Perfect example. I wouldn't do that, no, but I wouldn't want it to be illegal.

True but would you want it to be illegal if the vast majority people that did walk 200 miles on foot instead of driving, did it because they were doing it to get away with committing a crime?

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#344

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

jesusofnazarath wrote: post #266
Teandw wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what circumstances have you or someone you known ever needed to pay for something over €10k in cash?

A car?

And if anything I absolutely hate cash transactions for used cars but sadly there haven’t been many alternatives. Maybe this will finally fix this.

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#345

Post by DiggyJohnson »

nly wrote: post #323
mberning wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horrible take. 10k is a pittance. Small business owners, farmers, people buying and selling vehicles, etc. It’s not a large amount of money. If you go down to the apple store and buy a couple well specced computers the bill is going to be over 10k.

Americans aren't used banking systems that work.

I feel like we have decent banking here…?

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#346

Post by sofixa »

sgjohnson wrote: post #249
dbspin wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lifted my country as well as dozens of others out of developing world status. There's a huge delta in national wealth between post soviet nations who joined the EU and those that didn't for example. A rising tide raises all boats.

The eastern europe will lose the most in long run, because the EU caused a massive brain drain. For the west it’s just a matter of money. The demographic crisis in the east is real.

The demographic crisis is real in the Eastern European countries not in the EU (Western Balkans, former USSR) too, but at least the standard of living has massively improved in the EU member states.

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#347

Post by maxnoe »

fh973 wrote: post #297
Certhas wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany dislike credit cards and pay small sums in cash. Anything substantial is done by Überweisung/bank transfer and has been forever. I never had a cheque book in Germany.

How do you pay for a used car?

My father in law was a used Carsten salesman until he fetired two years ago.

Most used cars are bought using loans. I.e. the bank provides a loan specifically for bying that car, directly via the dealership.

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#348

Post by manscrober »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #276
pelorat wrote: post #250

This will affect maybe 0.001% of the population. No one drops a stack of 10K euro when they buy something, it just doesn't happen.

Whenever someone introduces new restrictions to freedoms, there is always someone who says, 'relax, it will affect only few people'. Rinse and repeat, and this way, piece by piece, all your freedoms will be taken away. Remember: Government is not your friend. It needs to be kept in check. Financial freedoms, untraceable transactions, etc help keep government in check. Yes, it allows crime. But guess what, when govern…

I agree with the sentiment in this case, and I do think 10k is ridiculously low for this restriction and the premise of this helping money laundering doesn't sound very convincing to me. But this strawman is IMO the weakest possible argument against the whole "this affects no-one" idea.

I think the more convincing points are 1) it does actually affect many people within specific groups, e.g. business owners 2) there is no alternative that comes anywhere near the features of cash, especially reliability and acceptance combined with instantaneous transfer. I think history gives enough reason to mistrust banks in times of financial crisis, and I literally cannot reliably pay for anything without a card from a bank or credit institute - or cash.

there are more points mentioned in the comments here on HN but I realized I started rambling so I'll just stop here

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#349

Post by nibbleshifter »

pelorat wrote: post #264
olivermarks wrote: post #253

'By limiting large cash payments, the EU will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money. ' Bizarre how the EU is penalizing everyone in order to 'make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money'. People pay taxes in order to have their bureaucrats serve them by creating a safe financial and social environment, not to have them assume everyone is a criminal/terrorist and greatly impede access to their as…

> Bizarre how the EU is penalizing everyone in order to 'make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money'. It doesn't affect anyone. No one in Europe uses cash for anything more expensive than maybe 200 euros. Of course in some countries like Sweden and the Netherlands no one uses cash any more at all, and almost all ATM machines have been removed. I believe cash-only places are now outlawed. The reason for this…

I'm European, and mostly use cash.

Re: EU-wide maximum limit of €10K for cash payments

#350

Post by bigfudge »

lzaaz wrote: post #320
senda wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure if you don't want to pay tax

That's right, I don't. Good thing about cars and houses is that you can pay some amount officially and then pay more money under the table.

Right. But that is illegal and in my view also immoral. If you want to change the law campaign for it. But breaking tax laws is not a victimless crime. You are freeloading/stealing from the rest of us.
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