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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

#901
post #600
post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In his home country, you couldn't trust the banks, so people hid their money. Of course that kind of thinking is silly in Australia, but good luck explaining that to someone with war-trauma. Not too long ago we saw the Canadian government freeze bank accounts of people for protesting the Covid measures. Don’t think that it cannot happen in your country.

For people not familiar with Canadian politics, this summary missed some important nuance. Bank accounts were frozen for some people who donated money to support an illegal occupation of part of Canada's capital city, Ottawa. The occupation was a mix of people protesting COVID measures and others demanding that Justin Trudeau resign. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergency-bank-measures-fin...

Please read the article and avoid the spread of more misinformation. Donor names were NOT provided by the RCMP. The frozen accounts were holding funds that were donated:

> In a statement released Monday, the RCMP said it only provided banks with the names of convoy organizers and the owners of trucks who had refused to leave the protest area. The RCMP said it did not release an exhaustive list of every donation made.

> "At no time did we provide a list of donors to financial institutions," the statement said.

The only reports of accounts being indiscriminately frozen came from hearsay:

> Some Conservative MPs have said constituents have reported that their bank accounts were frozen after they made donations to the convoy protest through one of its crowdfunding campaigns.

Most of the reports were fictitious constituents that "lost bank account access to buy groceries". Nobody was able to independently confirm any of these claims.

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

#902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I can assure you I didn't have to issue You did - if it was open source, you issued a copyleft licence that uses the system of copyright to disclaim your rights. It’s a licence. Maybe you didn’t specify a licence, depending on your jurisdiction then perhaps the work is classed public domain automatically or more likely you’ve created a situation where technically your users are breaching your copyright. >> I can k…

> You did - if it was open source, you issued a copyleft licence that uses the system of copyright to disclaim your rights. It’s a licence. I mean I didn't manually make each license, it's COPIED without nothing being removed from me. I can copy it once or a million times, nothing is removed and value is added, hence non-zero sum. > You’ll no longer have the paint or the canvas, you’ll have a painting. Zero sum. No,…

>> I mean I didn't manually

Manually or automatically issuing is insignificant. Your work was automatically copyrighted when you wrote it, if you did nothing else - such as agreeing to exchange those rights for a salary from an employer, or declaring the software as licenced under specific terms, or performing the necessary actions in your jurisdiction to enter the works into the public domain, if you did none of these, then it’s yours to claim as an asset if you want.

>> nothing is removed and value is added

No asset was removed - ownership of the copyright of the software still remains unchanged when people copied your open source software.

However, no new asset was created. They derived value from your software hopefully but they didn’t gain a new asset.

What if you licenced it under a really permissive licence like apache? It’s still the same story. someone else can create their own asset by changing your apache licenced software and distributing it as theirs. They’re in breach of that particular licence if they try to redistribute completely unchanged work under a different licence.

>> a painting has more value than the paint and canvas

You’re conflating valuation with accounting. The value of an asset is a different and often subjective concern, from the accounting of ownership of it.

A painting has more value than it’s raw materials (hopefully!), but that tells us nothing about how to account for ownership of the asset.

If i have a case of beers that i bought for $50 and i take it to the beach and sell it for $100 to a group of thirsty friends, the valuation changed but the chain of custody of the asset was zero sum all through.

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

#903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My country loses about €32 billions in yearly income due to tax evasion. That's the amount of money that could change many lives if used right. Instead we're cutting benefits to the poor bto reduce our deficit. Tax evasion is a top priority.

Another solution is to just increase taxes until you end up with €32 billion in increased revenue. An advantage is also that this solution is actually _possible_ (as opposed to getting rid of all tax evasion).

But then you are just punishing those that actually pay taxes by making them pay more, while those who evade keep doing it. Also I doubt it would be possible, as raising taxes in the current economical and political climate is a political suicide.

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

#904

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen Maestro-exclusive terminals for 10 years, at least with support of Mastercard, but the survivorship bias is hard because my country was a playground for all new tech of both Visa and MC.

The issue is that Albert Heijn, and many other stores in the Netherlands, will not accept credit cards. And then American-issued debit cards do not seem to work either (eg, Bank of America shows the symbol "Debit Visa"). Perhaps debit cards from say Austria work (they're often on similar networks as the Dutch banks).

Sounds like American debit cards have a different code than elsewhere.

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

#905

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another solution is to just increase taxes until you end up with €32 billion in increased revenue. An advantage is also that this solution is actually _possible_ (as opposed to getting rid of all tax evasion).

But then you are just punishing those that actually pay taxes by making them pay more, while those who evade keep doing it. Also I doubt it would be possible, as raising taxes in the current economical and political climate is a political suicide.

Personally I think you just have the wrong perspective. Increasing enforcement to decrease tax evasion _is_ raising taxes. And affected groups will fight very hard against enforcement so I don't really see why you think that approach is somehow easier.

And you seem be talking about the elimination of tax evasion as if it's actually possible. Clearly it is not. The amount of tax evasion can potentially be decreased through policy and effort and we just need to decide how much we accept. Maybe the current level _is_ acceptable? In any case, some level must be acceptable. What level is acceptable to you?*

*This is a trick question. It's basically unanswerable without knowing the cost of enforcement (which increasing asymptotically as the amount of evasion goes to zero). But it is a reality that everyone should probably come to terms with.

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

#906
post #103
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any purchase should be possible with legal tender. I will keep withdrawing my income in cash and inconveniencing others with cash transactions for every single purchase, including those exceeding this limit, out of principle. Digital ledgers have proven to be unreliable. Anyone arguing otherwise hasn't witnessed bank runs, withdrawal limits, transaction limits, hyperinflation and war wiping out lifetime savings and d…

And you think a bag full of paper money in your basement will help you once bombs are dropped on your home town? How exactly will that help in war time more than money in your account that you can withdraw once in safety? If you choose to deal with cash exclusively for the sake of it, so be it. But for everyone else, it’s just a less efficient way to move money from account A to account B.

Money that I have on my person, is always better than money that I cannot access.

There is usually at least a short lag between $DISASTER and $ECONOMY_COLLAPSE during which many people are happy to take cash and provide food, shelter and transport. Often you will have a steep inflation curve and rising transaction costs/exchange rates, but at least you are in control of the money that you have in your pocket.

The same cannot be said about digital money. Even though in theory you have a larger pool of places where you could spend it, money that is in your account isn't guaranteed to be accessible. Banks' infrastructure may be down, whether due to $DISASTER itself or corporate/political decision. The banks may impose withdrawal limits or a complete restriction on withdrawals and transactions. Online transactions may fail at any point in the acquirer-issuer-processor chain. ATM:s are likely to be empty.

Online transactions may be reversed. Even when you manage to "lock in" exchange rate X just before a currency's collapse in value, the merchant can and will cancel your order, make up excuses, and refund you the nominal value at the old exchange rate.

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

#907

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Using $10,000 in cash is like doing a very specific math problem? A lot more people have used large quantities of cash for non-criminal activity. The few times I have used huge quantities of cash, it has been for stupid reasons: someone doesn't take credit cards or bank transfers, and won't trust a check until it clears, so it's easier to just use a pile of cash. By the way, I keep plenty of cash around so I…

> someone doesn't take credit cards or bank transfers That will change with this law, finally. Or put them out of business. That's a good thing, don't you agree? > so I can still pay for stuff even if the internet goes out regionally If you having to pay transactions >10k frequently enough that network outages block you, I'd wager you're doing exactly the kind of something this law should prevent. > there are plenty…

>That will change with this law, finally. Or put them out of business. That's a good thing, don't you agree?

Or here's a novel idea: Try not to support coercive laws and rules that seek to stamp out the possibility of people having unorthodox or somewhat unusual voluntary payment preferences, just because you don't personally like them.

>If you having to pay transactions >10k frequently enough that network outages block you, I'd wager you're doing exactly the kind of something this law should prevent.

Because somebody has cash and payment needs, or levels of preparedness that your own narrow thinking doesn't digest isn't a good reason to automatically assume that they're probably a criminal who should be targeted by invasive and authoritarian controls. Frankly, it's something of a sick mentality to immediately treat with suspicion of criminal activity those who support or personally prefer conducting their financial affairs differently from how you do.

As for your final comment, People wanting to transact privately aren't nuts and bolts to be removed from the scene by some nasty, dirty little toolbox of edicts by politicians who regularly protect corruption on larger scales. It's absurdly malicious, or at least plain ignorant to think that way. There are much more fundamental and obvious reasons underpinning the fight against parasitic, invasive financial laws. Read a little about both modern politics in much of the world and modern history even in Europe itself to at least slightly understand the basis for resisting these rules on cash.

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

#908
post #257

'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…

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

And why do you need to justify that something should be made illegal just because your personal circumstances don't include it as an experience in your life? Unless something is explicitly (or sometimes implicitly) harmful to others, it should not be banned just because you don't live it. Part of even a basic respect for un individual freedoms means not automatically trying to ban things that don't rigidly fit a common notion of how you "should" live.

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

#909
post #860

'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…

I don’t see how limiting cash payments is “penalizing” anyone. I have never payed more than say $3k in cash. It just doesn’t make sense to do so. Privacy shouldn’t exist for financial transactions. It makes it easier to launder money or hide wealth. There is no other use for “dark” financial transactions. There is no tyranny in making finances of everyone transparent. It doesn’t force anyone to make different choices…

>Privacy shouldn’t exist for financial transactions. It makes it easier to launder money or hide wealth. There is no other use for “dark” financial transactions.

This makes a very tenuous assumption that government is always justified in any money it seeks to take away or trace, or that nobody ever has a good and even moral reason for hiding their money from a hungry state.

That's an awfully narrow view of reality or even the long history of governments becoming downright predatory.

Yes, privacy absolutely should exist for financial transactions. It's flat out naive, or elitist and authoritarian to believe that the state deserves a constant right to know where every penny you have goes and how to confiscate it whenever it pleases.

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

#910
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not rare, happens every day. How else are you going to buy it from another private person safely? You want to have an instant transaction. You give somebody money and get a car, thats the safest transaction for both sides. Are you going to wire somebody 10k+ for a car you can't have instantly? (note real time bank transactions are only now becoming a real widespread thing around here in Germany)

> How else are you going to buy it from another private person safely? SEPA transfers take 30 seconds to clear. > You give somebody money and get a car or you give them the money and get back nothing, because "what money are you talking about?" > thats the safest transaction for both sides that's literally the less safe! > Are you going to wire somebody 10k+ for a car you can't have instantly? If you are buying somet…

> SEPA transfers take 30 seconds to clear.

not entirely true, there are several countries in europe in which a SEPA transfer is shown in the beneficiary the next day, the most famous one being Italy. Italy also being the one with specific laws against mafia and terrorism, therefore such transfer would require you to add some additional papers.

> > thats the safest transaction for both sides > that's literally the less safe!

well so it's a bank transfer because once the money has been sent you cannot get it back, the bank acts only on specific cases.

there's literally a million of cases of scams via ebay or similar that involved bank transfers and for which the bank was just "sorry".

> If you are buying something worth more than 10k and you need it now, something's obviously not right.

you are confusing "out of the ordinary" with "not right" and i'd like to remind you our legal systems in EU are still based on "innocent until proven guilty" principle.

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