Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands
rijksoverheid.nl
rijksoverheid.nl
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
What is the maximum amount I can pay in cash? At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. For cash purchases above € 10,000, the seller must conduct a customer due diligence. But not all sellers accept cash. The cabinet is working on a bill to ban cash payments from € 3,000.
Pay for purchases in cash At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. It doesn't matter how high the amount is. A seller can decide not to accept cash above a certain amount. Or not accepting cash at all .
Customer research for purchases above € 10,000 Do you make a purchase that costs more than € 10,000 and do you pay in cash? Then the seller must conduct a customer due diligence . This check is mandatory to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
Bill cash payments up to € 3,000 A bill is being drafted to ban cash payments from €3,000 . This applies to all buyers and sellers of goods. When the new law comes into effect, you may no longer pay for purchases from € 3,000 in cash.
Proposed legislation in general is not particularly HN-interesting:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://www-rijksoverheid-nl.translate.goog/onderwerpen/geld...
I couldn't find an NLTimes article (yet) since this isn't enshrined into law.
The equivalent of 3,000 - 4,000 Euro seems to be the norm.
I wasn't planning on paying in cash but they dily informed me.
You cannot enter any EU state with more than the equivalent of 10,000 Euro cash unless you declare the amount at the point of entrance.
If border controls finds you with more than 10,000 Euro you will have to pay a fine.
Then you can walk with any amount of money, but when you pay for something there is a limit (500 in Greece, 1,000 in Spain, 5,000 in Italy (was 2,000 in 2022), no limits in Germany, etc.) to any single payment in cash.
And there is usually a provision prohibiting "artificial fractioning" of payment, i.e. in theory if you buy something worth 1,200 and the limit is 1,000 you cannot pay that with two invoices/receipts 600 Euro each.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring
Also illegal in the US.
wth?
EDIT:
Also this something that I didn't know about the UK
> With regard to the change, there are unlimited payments of £ 5, £ 2 and £ 1. Coins with a face value of 50p, 25p and 20p can pay amounts up to £ 10, with 10p and 5p up to £ 5 and with 2p and 1p up to 20p.
Which often causes problem when the cars is defective and seller goes "sure, I will pay you back in full, the amount that is on documents". And buyer got no recourse for that.
Car dealers, used or new, are different so.
wth?
Cash isn't great, but some people don't use online banking - and in a private sale, only a fool would hand over their car keys to a stranger in exchange for a cheque.
(Of course, this was a much bigger issue 15 years ago - these days we have faster payments, and the vast majority of people can make payments from their phone.)
This is the US version of the events. I don't know all EU member states in detail, but I can't think of one where it's possible to receive salary/pension in cash.
Cheques have not been a thing for 20y+, I wonder if they are still issued.
By far the most common method of receiving income from an employer in the US is direct deposit. For people who refuse, the fallback position is typically a card (essentially a refillable gift card).
Checks still do exist, but primarily for one-off payments where the payer and payee don't have much of a relationship.
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 countries more. Or at least stop assuming that the EU is one homogenous society modeled after their own personal experiences.
>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 too.
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.
The UK has an "exceptions service" via the post office for taking your pension as cash. https://www.postoffice.co.uk/payment-exception-service
At least here in Poland there were only theoretical option ( I have not seen one in person once for 20+ years), and removed few years back
The check issue is solved by concluding the transaction at the buyer's bank. A cashier's check can be issued by that bank to the seller. Since that check is backed up by the bank's own accounts, not subject to the buyer's whims (e.g., they can't stop payment, and the bank will have confirmed that buyer has that amount in their account and debit it immediately), it's as good as cash (well, unless the bank itself is unsound) but safer to carry around.
Suppose I try to pay for this £12 crate of Coke cans with twenty four 50 pence pieces. The rule you quoted says that won't work, but it totally will in most cases especially at larger stores or if it's obvious I don't have any other money.
On the other hand suppose I try to buy five £1 packs of Harribo bear candy with a hundred five pence pieces from the grumpy corner store guy who knows perfectly well I have a credit card. He's going to tell me to fuck off, and perhaps rightly so.
I shall try and remember that.
And I'm glad coins are more popular in Europe than in the US because those $1 notes take too much space
Many people in the US basically don’t use cash, quite true - but in some parts of the country like NYC, many restaurants and convenience stores are cash-only or only accept cards with a higher price or a minimum purchase amount. So cash is still very commonly carried in NYC and similar cities. The pandemic made it rarer than before for cards not to be accepted at all, but it still happens, as do minimums and price differences.
In case you’re wondering about legality: the policies I describe above can be legal or illegal depending on the specifics, but both legal and illegal versions of them are commonly seen in practice.
This provision of the Dodd-Frank Act does not cover debit cards, and I believe merchant agreements still prohibit minimums for debit cards. This prohibition is widely violated. I have no idea whether this prohibition is officially applicable to debit cards when they are processed as credit cards (which usually means no PIN for most US cards) - I’ve heard people say it’s not - but it definitely covers debit cards when they are processed as debit cards (which again for most US cards is always the case if a PIN is input).
As for NY’s current rules on price differences for credit cards vs cash and debit cards vs cash and the required disclosures, those are a bit complex, so I’ll just link an official explanation here:
https://dos.ny.gov/news/consumer-alert-nys-division-consumer...
But the TL;DR is, yes different pricing is legal if worded and disclosed correctly. To nobody’s surprise, illegal implementations remain common as well.
I can see a merchant not wanting to pay the credit card transaction fee if the purchase is so low as to make the sale a wash or worse.
I just wonder if the $10 limit is throwing the dog a bone and small merchants really want/need a higher minimum to protect their margins.
Seems like not allowing merchants to decide how they accept payments is an overreach by the government.
$1 coins have flopped whenever they've been tried in more or less living memory in the US.
I was recently in El Salvador, which uses the USD as an official currency (alongside BTC lol). Despite using dollars, the $1 coins are used instead of notes almost exclusively for that denomination (mostly presidential dollars and some silver Susan B Anthony dollars). I was curious and did a bit of research, apparently the reason is that because day-to-day transactions are done almost entirely in small amounts of cash the paper notes have a very short lifespan (apparently <1yr) there, while coins will last decades.
(ok, hyperbole, but I've had a few like that)
The US note was printed after 2001, that's a considerable time difference.
Though your $20 notes are usually in excellent condition for some reason compared to the british equivalent.
Yeah, that's how they are, but feeling like they're going to fall apart and actually falling appart are two different things.
> Though your $20 notes are usually in excellent condition for some reason compared to the british equivalent.
$20 bills tend to get picked up at the bank, spent at a merchant, and deposited at a bank. Banks will send worn notes to be retired. Many businesses don't take bills larger than $20, so don't use $20s to make change. It's uncommon to pay vendors and employees in cash, so merchants end up with a surplus of $20s that need to be deposited.
$1 bills are used in change, so they tend to get exchanged frequently. Few consumers will deal with $1s at a bank, and many businesses won't ever deposit them, but may need to make withdrawls in $1s so they can make change. They tend to pass through many hands before they get back to a bank where their condition can be checked.
The sterling pound coin was introduced in 1983. The 60s were pre-decimalisation even.
In mainland US, preference for paper $1s isn't unduly burdensome. As a merchant, deposit the worst of the $1s and use the rest as change, no big deal. As a consumer, if someone doesn't take your grimy, half torn $1, try it a couple more places and then take it to a bank (perhaps even your bank). But it's unsurprising that doesn't really work for El Salvador.
It makes my dream of returning money in thousands of 1 cent coins out of spite impossible
I'd also rather pay the Macbook by card due to practicality, but I don't understand your second sentence. Why would you walk around with a Macbook worth 3k but not with 3k in cash? Nobody knows that you have 3k in cash with you, whereas everybody can see you walking out of the Apple Store with the Macbook.
I don’t do it often; last time was when I moved to the UK without a British bank account and did not want to pay any transfer fees, which are quite expensive for larger sums (I had to carry enough to live one month and pay a first month’s rent before getting my first pay check). Another one was when I had to buy a computer after having reach the 7-days ceiling in my debit card (now you can increase it on the bank’s app; it used to be more complicated).
The first time, it feels a little odd, but then you realize that nobody at the bank bats an eye at you withdrawing a few grand, and $3k in 100s is about the size of a phone in your pocket.
Since nobody carries cash, nobody thinks that other people are carrying cash, so it doesn't make you a target. And I'm not anymore likely to lose my wallet with $500 in cash in it than I am my $1000 phone.
Thugs will target older people who are more likely to carry cash, they do some stereotyping other of people who are still worth mugging.
Also, if they notice the wallet bulge in your back pocket, you’ve become a target.
And anything that doesn’t look like a wallet probably won’t trigger a response. You would be safer to just wad up money and shove it in your pocket than to carry it around in a wallet.
I've been on this site for a long time, and as far as I can recall this isn't accepted.
"It's for your own safety."
If it's a ride shared by several strangers, everyone can be handcuffed, too, so everyone keeps their hands to themselves for an added safety boost.
It will make the rest of your life a lot easier.
Sorry had to fix that.
Banks fail, and no one should be forced to need one.
Logicians, please simplify the previous statement.
Compare: in the US, you can be detained for driving over the speed limit. You can also be detained for driving under the speed limit, if police believe either that your slow speed is dangerous, or that you are driving slowly to avoid being detained. In all but the most egregious cases of abuse, a driver will have little reason to complain that they shouldn't have been pulled over.
These are both dragnets.
Even some people who historically took cash (such as household tradesmen) now often simply have the money transferred instantly on the doorstep, rather than have to carry cash around in their pockets all day. I imagine a similar story in much of the rest of Europe.
If the banks actually track it or not is another question. Every now and then a report comes out mentioning a banks failure to do so.
Easy as that, no need for checks or cash.
In reality, there’s hardly any 3,000 euros+ transaction where a business or individual will accept cash. That’s too much money to have on hand when a bank transfer is much more comfortable…still happens rarely though so I think this law is overreaching.
Disclosure: I’m not Dutch nor European so my opinion hardly matters here.
The average person isn't affected by this type of government surveillance and potential overreach because the average person doesn't buy things that are priced at over 3,000 euros per transaction. They can easily hide all their daily transactions from the scrutiny of government and surveillance capitalism just fine.
This regulation only impacts the wealthiest people and/or the organized criminal.
I have had multiple cash transactions above $3,000 every year that I've done this. Not to avoid taxes, not to keep them off the books, but because one of the parties has either the unwillingness or inability to take electronic payments. Elderly people, those located in rural or otherwise isolated areas, those with a natural distrust of government for whatever reason, or those with a distrust of banks in general. These are all valid use cases.
This law would make it nearly impossible for me to do what I do (on the side).
I wouldn't say I routinely do large (>$3000) cash transactions, but I do them often enough that I guess I'd be a criminal in the Netherlands.
Hopefully not for too much longer:
It's incredible how lax the rules are for how verified the CC information needs to be for a transaction to clear. There was a HN article about it not that long ago, w.r.t. dealing with Stripe or one of the other big processors. Stuff like the CVV can be wrong, the issued name can vary by some heuristic, etc.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
With all due respect, the transactions above that rough amount is exactly those I would want the government to keep an eye on, while letting me buy stuff for a few hundreds freely and without having to report it.
There is pretty much no situation whatsoever when someone buys something for more than 3k€ where the absolute requirement to use cash is not linked to some shady reasons.
Why should that be limited?
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, maybe it's linked to how strange sending money seems to still be in some circumtances in the US ? Reading about Venmo and the likes is just surprising to me, a 10 minutes SEPA wire is free here, and as good as cash.
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.
>what are some good reasons to allow
Me:
>what are some good reasons to ban
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
-
No chance of making errors in the bank nr, you can pre-specify the required amount in the request. No chance of making an error counting out 3K or more in cash notes.
Within the NL banking/payment landscape I'd argue that large cash transactions are more bothersome for everyone involved. (well, unless involving a bank is bothersome to either of the parties, but if that is the case we're probably entering "dubious transaction" or "dubiously sourced money" territory..)
If the government wants to eliminate the requirement of accepting large amounts of cash, I can see that. If you're not equipped to handle being paid in a large cash sum, it can definitely be inconvenient. But making the exchange of large sums of cash between two consenting parties illegal is bold-faced tyranny.
As silly as it sounds, this system is not scalable.
I agree that in a grocery store, it is far easier to pay with a card.
I have only paid in-person using NFC for nearly 10 years in Norway. I understand that the situation is different other places, but I'm literally not sure what our physical currency looks like now.
However, I walked into a store in Spain yesterday that was cash only. Now I have cash in EUR that I not only overpaid insanely for because of the ATM , but I also can't use it in Norway. If cash was no longer an option then it would be much simpler and cheaper as my bank does the currency exchange for me.
Digital payments are probably better in every way when it's the norm, except for privacy, and that's a big one.
Ha, well you'll have a heart attack when you look at your visa statement and realized that visa can charge even worse rates for currency conversion than ATM's do.
Plus visa charges the vendor a fee( around 2ish%) that has to be born by the buyer and seller. Cash doesn't have this built in tax.
Now I'll admit I have no idea bout Norway, so maybe you have some special way to pay with zero transaction fees and have the cash show up instantly with no holds on the payment ever, if so, good for you guys.
Centralized digital payments fail here as well.
Please do not reply to this post saying that you are a "prepper".
All you’ve shown is you have a delayed reaction, and claim preparing for a disaster is a bad thing. I mean think about that for a second.
Naturally the mobile phone network, GPRS/3G that POS devices relied on was overwhelmed. And maybe something else went wrong on the banks backend.
So international credit card transactions were hit or miss for half a day. I was happy I had got some local before the earthquake. So I was able to continue the rest of the day with no issues.
I'm not sure I'd feel safe if anyone could pay an amount above € 3000 after stealing my watch / phone / card and putting them on a terminal.
As for the phone, you need to unlock the phone for larger purchases. The card requires a pin for larger purchases. The watch needs to be unlocked to after being removed from the arm.
So that is not something to be worried about.
1) Disallowing a third-party in every single transaction you make, especially as
1a) Inflation means 3k now might be quite low in 20 years
1b) Banks themselves have been shown to be scummy
1c) Banks are a rare institution to allow outsiders into.
2) Bank accounts themselves are not actually all that accessible; it's quite common for people to be ineligible for a bank account under random (but common) circumstances. -- an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
3) Cash is the only fiat currency that actually exists, I know it's trendy to think that lines in a database are meaningful- but if you have physical cash you know what it's worth and it can't be hacked or seized. (though a good counterpoint is of course that you can be robbed or it can get destroyed).
I live in Sweden and we're very far down the path of "cash is dead" - there's a considerable number of stores and fast food joints that do not even accept cash. However, when I moved to this country I couldn't open a bank account and without people accepting cash at that time I would have paid exorbitant fees on each transaction.
So with that in mind I'm not in favour of restricting cash, I'm aware of the drawbacks of large fiat currency transactions; but It gives the central banks even more power than they currently have (which is a lot, which you'd know if you were on the wrong side of a policy or get into one of their loops) and we're not sure that they are going to continue to be fair into the future.
Note: you cannot hold a bank account with the central bank that actually issues currency. You are voting for a middle-man.
There's also money orders.
If you give me a $20 bill, I can immediately exchange it for a case of beer at the bodega with no extra steps. If you give me a money order for $20, I need to find someone who is willing and/or able to convert that money order into a $20 bill before I can buy my beer.
Not in the Netherlands. Any adult (18 or older) resident of the EU has the right to a bank account, by law.
> an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
Why would you need to pay a utility bill to get a bank account? Those two things are completely unrelated. All you need is a valid ID (either ID card, passport or drivers license) and you are required to have that anyway.
A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license. (for example: I didn't when I got my first bank account).
My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID. I can say that with absolute confidence after working in financial services (albeit briefly).
In some cases, you can get basically locked out of all essential services, including bank account closures, not being able to make payments (especially now with these laws), etc.
Real fun!
I've never had to register my address anywhere unless I have a drivers license.
You broke the law if you were a resident of Germany and didn't register yourself.
You think Europe would have learned a thing or two from WW2 and what was going down on the continent. I guess some behaviors are just too culturally ingrained.
You mean, you have to be ready to be punished for breaqking shitty laws just to point to their shittiness.
Sure, but in my case nothing happened, so, meh?
Registering the address will get you the tax number, which is necessary to be paid.
The health insurance (also mandatory when working) would need a registered address.
I did have a tax number, since I got paid and presumably paid taxes.
I never went anywhere just to register my address though. That sounds so insane to me.
Still a crappy system.
How would you handle those things without the government knowing your address?
Then why is it only EU countries and authoritarian governments that do it?
> They need to know your address for a lot of things.
And when those things come up, they can ask your address. But requiring people to register in general is a step too far.
>> And when those things come up, they can ask your address.
How would they do that if they don't have your address? For example: a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?
If you need to deal with taxes, you submit your address to the tax agency.
If you need to deal with license stuff, you deal with the equivalent of the DMV.
And so on.
There's no need to just file your address with the government 'in general'.
> a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?
Internet is kind of irrelevant. Most government agencies don't use the internet to contact people unless they specifically opt in and the agency offers that.
They would use your last known address, or wait for you to contact them.
I need to file taxes but no one sends me a reminder. My town asks me to verify my address once a year but nothing (other than possibly being eventually removed from voting rolls) happens if I don't. Driver's license and registration are supposed to be your current address but again I'm not sure anything especially happens if they aren't. No one sends me anything to remind me to get my inspection updated.
So I have a supposedly current address on file with various government agencies but AFAIK there is absolutely no rule that, if I pick up and move I have to tell anyone. I do need to file taxes correctly although, as I wrote elsewhere, if I don't have a permanent address that's simultaneously perfectly legal and something of an edge case.
Many banks (Santander, HSBC just two I checked) have entry points for people who are genuinely homeless. And accepted ID can include simple government things like council tax or a driver's license, but also just a letter from your employer or school. Again these are soft checks.
Yes, but you don’t need a bill for that, you can just get it from the municipality where you are registered.
> A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license.
Anyone age 14 and up is required by law to be able to show an ID when asked. So yeah, everyone here has an ID.
> My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
The rules for children are different. Once you turn 18 you need to ID yourself to the bank. If you don’t do this your account will be blocked. You will be informed of this shortly before you turn 18.
> having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID
You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service. You can send/receive money and get a debit card. Anything else, credit cards, loans, etc. are of course not included.
And sure, if you’ve been convicted of fraud or anything like that, that’s an exception.
I don't know how it is in Sweden or in the Netherlands, but here in France, I needed a bill or some other "proof of address" to register to vote with the town hall. I had been living in the same apartment for years, and they never seemed to require any proof before sending me the papers asking for the local taxes.
Yeah, that's not how it works in all European countries. Which can get really "interesting" in some cases, believe me (I've lived through that).
I've also been requested proof of employment, which is also interesting when you're unemployed. In one of the countries, they said I can just give them proof of unemployment benefits... which I don't have, because I left my job willingly.
And then they told me: "well, in that case you can get proof of unemployment from the municipality". Except... that I'm not even living in your damn country and the municipality where I live doesn't even know whether I'm working or not (why would they?!).
But this does not even compare to all the problems I've had when I've not been living in the same place stably for an extended period of time. It has been an absolute hell in some cases, because institutions (governments, banks, lawyers, etc) simply do not account for this possibility. They all assume that you have a stable address of residence.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
> You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service.
I don't think that's how it works. The governments have created a legal requirement for banks to provide minimum banking services, yes. But banks still have to comply with many other very strict requirements and customers may not be able to fulfill them, which prevents them from opening bank accounts.
I haven't personally had this issue but I know someone who did in the US. No permanent address; they were doing a lot of traveling.
Nothing wrong/illegal about that. But, by the books, it means they can't get a driver's license and other important documents. So you basically have to lie. Either use a third-party digital nomad service (which I understand some states may flag) or find a trustworthy friend or relative to "live" with (who will forward important mail to you and vouch for you if needed--which is what they did). There are still potential issues with respect to things like jury duty but these can mostly work although they're almost certainly at least marginally fraudulent.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
You can't "just" get it if you don't have a fixed address, or if the address isn't eligible for registration (the rules for that are rather strict).
Netherlands is one if the hardest countries if you end up in an "exceptional" situation; you can work around "proof of address" (not always, but frequently), but it's much harder to work around the municipal registration.
Yes, there are rules for exceptions (e.g. "briefadres") and there's stuff like https://www.basisbankrekening.nl – but in reality people are so strict with this that it might as well not exist for vast swaths of people.
If you've never been in an exceptional situation you think it's easy and works grand, and it does, right up to the point it doesn't, at which point you're pretty fucked. People are unaware because they've never experienced it, but it's really awful.
Last year it took me 5 months and a lot of proverbial "banging fist on the table" to get a bank account in the Netherlands. It took me about 2 weeks in Ireland. Just sayin'
- Few people are willing to rent to you if you don't have a Dutch bank account and current registration.
- You can't get registration without a place to rent that qualifies (and many places don't).
I was earning €90k/year at the time; it wasn't a money issue.
For immigrants or foreign workers a process of getting EU residence status may take months and sometimes require an EU bank account, so it may become an infinite loop. We have to take worst renting deals in order to get required papers, for example.
If you have a way to prove your ID(which basically everyone do in Norway) then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
However, if I'm not from Norway/Sweden/Denmark then I'm not in that system yet.
A bank checking your credit score just because you want to create an account would be a huge invasion of privacy.
A bank checking your credit score just because you want to create an account would be a huge invasion of privacy.
There is no reason for the bank to check your credit score if you're only using your own money.
After going through the process of moving to Norway, I can say that unfortunately things are not that straightforward for foreigners. Even after getting your work permit, getting a personnummer can take up to several months after moving, not to mention getting an appointment with UDI can also take up to several months (in the meantime you'll feel like a lesser member of society, basic things like getting a library card are not accessible without it). After all there's a reason why this kind of service exist https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mpr_sua-techfasttrack-oslo-ac...
> then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
This only works when you already have a BankID. It takes at least 1 month to open your first account. Granted after that, everything is smooth, but oh boy how much time does it take.
I came here to say something similar. We moved to the Netherlands in 2014 from the US and it was three or four months before our immigration stuff was far enough along that we could open a local bank account with an IBAN and get a chip and pin card (at the time, virtually no US banks would give you chip and pin cards). My partner couldn't even get paid during that time until she had a bank account. We lived off withdrawing cash from my US account at ATMs. That included paying our rent (we were lucky that our landlord, who lived in a different city, was OK with us just paying cash to their relative who lived nearby).
It's also just shitty to mandate a middle-man for transactions.
Why should I not be able to spend my own money how I feel? It's mine.
Any tax on the transaction belongs to the government, though.
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 Friday afternoon otherwise?
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 deposit over a certain amount I get a push notification. When I use my online banking app to transfer money from my account at bank A to my account at bank B, I get an alert from bank B’s app to inform me of the money appearing in my account before the app from bank A has even shown me the confirmation screen that the transfer request was received.
This is true for any two banks in a SEPA country.
EU is planning to make their support mandatory but IIRC this only be the case during “business hours”.
> So how would I buy a car on a Friday afternoon otherwise?
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa...
You must accept plenty of agreements between bank and you, and there are only so many banks, so it's very possible for some people to find bank terms to be unacceptable for them.
Right now those people have cash as an alternative. Making it illegal removes some freedom from those people.
I could or could not disclose that payment to my government depending on the laws and if there are fiscal benefits, it is my choice. I should not be forced to use a middle man for those payments, even if this means i am open to be scammed or victim of fraud.
now, as other mentioned, what are some good reasons to FORCE ONLY electronic payments above 3000€ ?
If a million dollars in $100 fits in a briefcase, Then it's a suitcase or more for $20 etc. And then banking that money becomes tedious as well.
Anyway, without enforcement it's really just tokenism.
Unless you have unclean cash to clean ofc
I would also argue that the only people making cash transactions that large are probably way wealthier than the average person and, again, are looking to launder their money.
Think about it seriously: in what scenario would you choose to use physical cash to make a transaction amounting in the thousands of dollars?
That's so insanely risky. You'd be a walking target. You could lose the money, someone could steal the money, it could be physically damaged.
It even puts you at risk during the transaction: why would the other party sell you the good when the money is right there ready to be robbed from you? There is no recourse because it's all under the table. I can't stop a check or have a paper trail to take to court if you just take my cash.
There is no situation I would be comfortable making a transaction with that much cash (unless I was in so insanely wealthy that this amount of money meant nothing to me).
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-...
That’s fine for you but why does that mean it should be illegal for everyone else?
edit: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/rettskilder/type/uttalelser/p...
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8300.pdf
I assume this and most other restrictions are to stop tax evasion and money laundering.
3-4k is something else, I had no idea the rest of the EU has it so low. I don't like it.
If someone were to owe a business a debt above €5,000, does the fact that they legally cannot accept payment in cash mean that they could legally refuse all proffered forms of payment ("sorry, we don't accept X"), and get that person declared a bad debtor for failure to pay?
The incredibly important thing about legal tender in the form of cash is that, if it is refused as a means of payment, the debt is declared void. It effectively cannot be refused.
https://moneyweek.com/33401/why-its-now-illegal-to-melt-down...
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2007/04/16/E7-7088...
> The United States Mint nevertheless acknowledges the concerns raised by the commenters. Therefore, the exception provided for in the current regulation at section 82.2(a)(2) has been amended to reasonably accommodate these concerns by allowing exportation of 5-cent and one-cent coins having an aggregate face value of up to $25 when it is clear that the purpose for exporting such coins is for legitimate personal numismatic, amusement, or recreational use.
It's still a weirdly low limit.
Federal authorities generally have a higher standard of behavior than local or state police, although obviously not in every instance. If you try to cross the border with $500,000 declared, they may have some questions for you.
The point being that in cases where there is no funny business (at least in your opinion), you are strictly better off declaring it than taking your chances on not doing so.
The law in the US is that, the police can take anything they want from you, with zero judicial process needed, slap it into their department's slush fund, buy whatever toys they want, or even as someone posted above, MAKE IT PART OF THEIR YEARLY BUDGET PROCESS TO "EXPECT" MILLIONS IN STOLEN MONEY, and unless you can AFFIRMATIVELY PROVE in a court of law that you obtained the property through zero criminal or near criminal activity, you will never get it back
This is one of those things that sounds simple, but in practice, YMMV.
https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/money
But I agree with the general principal that this should be inflation indexed.
To be honest, just because you can (legally), doesn't mean you should (do it). Carrying cash in the US is dangerous, and not just because of regular street thugs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
They do not need to prove anything to seize your money. Stealing from people carrying too much cash on them has become a national past time of the police in the US. There are police departments that rely on this to provide them with funding :
https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-131/how-crime-pays-th...
> In some Texas counties, forfeitures fund nearly 40% of police budgets.53 The Cook County, Illinois state’s attorney’s office’s 2016 budget anticipated $4.96 million in forfeiture revenues, which it earmarked to pay forty-one full-time employees’ salaries and benefits.54 But forfeiture proceeds are not just used for policing activities; with little accountability, law enforcement officials have also spent them on extravagancies like expensive dinners, parties, and personal expenses.55
> As a result, the decision to pursue a forfeiture is often governed not by justice, but by “department wish lists.”56 Police civil forfeiture trainings include instruction on “maximizing profits, defeating the objections of so-called ‘innocent owners’ . . . , and keeping the proceeds in the hands of law enforcment.
It's often talked about here :
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975143
> And over time, across all 50 states and the federal government, those small sums add up: between 2000 and 2019, according to IJ’s calculations, authorities seized roughly $69 billion from people, most of whom were not even charged with a crime.
All it takes is "mmh, this guy has suspicious cash, and we need some funding, let's steal it and say it must have come from drug deals, while not actually charging the owner with any crime".
You're talking about centralized grifting as your examples and I'm glad they failed (well, technically Tether hasn't failed, yet).
If you are 'trusting' those companies... that is the problem. The point is that you shouldn't have to trust those companies, or the government, with your money.
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.
Any source for this?
[EDIT] As pinted by other commenter:
https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cas...
They also mention "There is no cash limit for car purchases. However, a change in the law is already being discussed in Greece.".
Generally, should be trivial search info: e.g. "cash payment amount greece" produces multiple decent results
So it's sort of automatic.
It’s effectively “the company store”, except government (“by the people and for the people” - ie your neighbors) dictating what you buy. They just happen to also invest in the companies they direct you to.
You act like there isn't a MASSIVE distinction between a private business's CEO deciding what his employees should be able to do and an entire society democratically choosing what they want to be allowed.
Can't even get 5 more mph on the highway.
Speed limits are far more complicated than that.
They're used to reduce noise, create gaps in traffic so people can make left turns, give pedestrians time to cross a street, encourage people to see nearby businesses, and a hundred other reasons.
I've read a number of traffic studies in the last few decades. Some of them are fascinating in their technical depth.
Any particular episode?
# What is the maximum amount I can pay in cash?
At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. For cash purchases above € 10,000, the seller must conduct a customer due diligence. But not all sellers accept cash. The cabinet is working on a bill to ban cash payments from € 3,000.
## Pay for purchases in cash
At this time, you may pay for all purchases in cash. It doesn't matter how high the amount is. A seller can decide not to accept cash above a certain amount. Or at all [no cash to be accepted](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/geldzaken/vraag-en-...).
## Customer research for purchases above € 10,000
Do you make a purchase that costs more than € 10,000 and do you pay in cash? Then the seller must conduct a [client investigation](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/financiele-sector/a...). This check is mandatory to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
## Bill on cash payments up to € 3,000
There is a [legislative proposal in the making to prohibit cash payments from € 3,000](https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/wetsvoorstellen/deta...). This applies to all buyers and sellers of goods. When the new law comes into effect, you may no longer pay for purchases from € 3,000 in cash.
The internal argument is that it is not convenient for me to need to work only with cash. That is true it is less convenient but when I sacrifice due diligence for convenience then it turns out long term cash is more convenient.
My bank has 27 offices left in the entire Netherlands, and I don't think many of them take cash. I wouldn't even know how to get 3000 euro in cash into my bank account these days.
People don't use cash because there are better options that better meet their needs. Most people's needs don't include "the government can't know I'm buying this"
Is there really no monetary exchange you've made in your life that, if your government knew about, could get you into trouble? And are you so confident in the future of your government that you're willing to give them that power? I'm not.
It's not just the monetary exchange itself, financial transactions include a counterparty and location info too.
But really who wants to live in a system where you are so clearly funnelled from what it is you do every day to what it is you consume?
Not saying such systems don't also exist (e.g. food stamps, tax reliefs, different VAT regimes), but this is not it.
How not being able to buy a laptop or a bicycle without asking permission from third parties is a good thing?
Say I've sold a great amount of cocaine and now have 5 million euro in banknotes sitting in my safe at home. How do I launder this money and make it 'legitimate' using those methods?
The Wwft applies to anyone involved in cash flows or the purchase and sale of (expensive) goods. For example: banks; estate agents; notaries; tax advisers; lawyers; people who mediate in the purchase and sale of, for example, vehicles, art objects and jewellery.
So one-off transactions (you sell some personal item and accept cash) are probably exempt from the due diligence check.
It wants to control everything, even how we spend our cash and how.
Sic semper tyrannis.
Why would someone need to pay for 10k in cash? Where does that cash come from? 60% of the times, it's money laundering every time.
edit: I suppose since I'm in EU and I'm only 30 I'm "used" to the 1k limit, while non-EU (or specifically USA) people might be grabbing their pitchforks.
For their own personal reasons. Purchasing a business, a vehicle, a property or other real/tangible asset, hush money, avoiding a lawsuit, and so forth.
> Where does that cash come from?
It doesn't matter. Why do you care where people get their currency from? Do you have a rash of mint or bank robberies or something?
These purchases are already so bound up with red tape that making the actual payment via bank transfer is hardly an inconvenience.
> hush money
Extortion is a crime. You are listing a person’s attempt to placate a criminal as a reason the state shouldn’t get involved?
> avoiding a lawsuit
Few places are so litigious as the USA, and such concerns hardly register for the people living in the subject of this HN post.
That's a separate problem that allowing overeager regulation of currency utilization enables.
> Extortion is a crime. You are listing a person’s attempt to placate a criminal as a reason the state shouldn’t get involved?
Correct, extortion is a crime in some locales. Note, I said hush money, not extortion.
> Few places are so litigious as the USA, and such concerns hardly register for the people living in the subject of this HN post.
Few as litigious as the USA _so far_.
-------
A better set of questions here: who benefits, and by how much, with regulating currency so tightly?
Now it seems like you are resorting to the libertarian fantasizing that used to be so common on news-for-nerds sites.
> Note, I said hush money, not extortion.
Threatening to go public with a story when the other party might feel compelled to pay hush money, is already viewed as extortion.
> Few as litigious as the USA _so far_.
The special litigiousness of the USA is due to a number of longstanding factors including its inherited common-law system that differs from most other developed countries. It is not clear why you would expect other countries to become as litigious anytime soon.
> A better set of questions here: who benefits, and by how much, with regulating currency so tightly?
The general public who can be sure that taxes are being paid fairly and they are receiving the services they should. Again, not all countries are as culturally forgiving of tax evasion as Americans, let alone those places with even less controls over the flow of cash than the USA.
> Now it seems like you are resorting to the libertarian fantasizing that used to be so common on news-for-nerds sites.
As I see no reason it is a fantasy, I'll continue "resorting" to the reality that, frankly, the entity able to put me to death legally probably doesn't need to know my reasons and justifications for every action I take, respectfully. If that makes me a left-libertarian, then so be it. Respectfully, sounds like you might have some hangups with discussing points that have overlap in classical liberal philosophies, throwing out legitimate discussion with the baby and bathwater.
>> Note, I said hush money, not extortion.
> Threatening to go public with a story when the other party might feel compelled to pay hush money, is already viewed as extortion.
Payment for private services, like sexual services, are common in Europe and likely preferred to be kept private. I believe you would view this as legalized extortion.Yet, the desire for discretion exists even when the "threat" of information being public isn't necessarily blackmail.
> The general public who can be sure that taxes are being paid fairly and they are receiving the services they should. Again, not all countries are as culturally forgiving of tax evasion as Americans, let alone those places with even less controls over the flow of cash than the USA.
That's a weird way to spell "banks and financial institutions." There are plenty on controls already on the impoverished and middle class. A blunt hammer like this gums up transaction processing and allows for additional regulatory capture by banks and financial institutions.
The country that is the subject of this HN post does not have the death penalty.
> That's a weird way to spell "banks and financial institutions."
’Cause I wasn’t spelling that. Within welfare states, public will to minimize tax evasion is widespread. In Europe steps are already being taken to improve transaction processing and democratize this area of the banking industry, so there isn’t necessarily the “gumming up” of the works and regulatory capture that you assume. If things don’t look so good in your country, I’m afraid that’s your problem to sort out.
> The country that is the subject of this HN post does not have the death penalty.
Fine, lifetime imprisonment on trumped up charges. Please don't be disingenuous, coercion is coercion whether the loss of liberty is death or imprisonment.
They are definitely perceived high enough.
In Europe salary earners are taxed on the income as they receive it through Pay As You Earn and similar and it is difficult to avoid. The public wants it as difficult for all others to find it as difficult.
Whilst FAANG pay very little tax.
Even in the US Warren Buffet says he pays a lower rate of tax than his secretary.
The basic rule is that tax is progressive and rich people should pay a larger percentage than normal workers.
For example: if and when your country goes to pot, and you have a moral obligation to get your family out because we have this perceived notion of borders and sovereignty based on history we didn't agree to, a $3k block on transactions may well block you. We don't have to imagine very hard -- the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a recent prime example. Social order is delicate.
As a more mundane example, perhaps I purchase an item at auction, art or contents of a storage locker. Reporting burden should be on the records of the facility and subject to occasional audit, not on every single transaction that goes through. That'd be like implementing a carbon toll for every mile that I use a bus, walk with shoes, ride a bike, or use any form of motor vehicle. There are much better ways to do that.
Road pricing will come in so there will be a tax on every mile you use a bus or use a motor vehicle.
Further, implementing a road tax would require cumbersome monitoring generally (and especially if making it progressive) or, if equally treated, would be horribly regressive.
The use of petrol etc needs to be cut.
I admit I do live in a city and can get to shoips, pubs or the railway station within a 15 minute walk.
There are not transactions that avoid paying cash - they are reported to the tax authorities - so tax payers pay less.
Hush Money - these means something is being covered up - this would be better in the open - what ios the difference to balckmail.
I don't know about your experience, but I'd like to limit the amount of PII I give to the type of folks I buy used vehicles from. With cash, you both go on your way with the title. Its not to say they were criminals, but I also don't have much reason to trust them beyond the transaction.
For example, I was helping a friend buy a motorcycle. The seller arrived on the bike, we checked it out, paid, etc. He had a shirt on that said something like "stop domestic abuse". Then when his wife/gf/partner showed up to pick him up, he immediately started throwing verbal abuse at her. The guy was unstable but it wasn't immediately obvious. We already had the bike, the title, and we were on our way.
By the way, you're still allowed to use cash for private transactions, so you can still pay whatever amount of cash you want to a private party to buy an item.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Num...
The online payment system via bank transfers (iDeal) works so well I’ve heard it’s going to become a european thing, and I’m legit excited about that.
And let's not start with some fetish fantasy about "because an oppressive regime could do so any time"
The car is a variable for anything you can think of, but I will give you a hypothetical example with the car then. Imagine in 20 years where owning a gas car is frowned upon, the government introduces a new law that one can no longer purchase gas cars - used or not, maybe this government was even lobbied by some electric car conglomerate. Am I allowed to worry about that or is that a fetish fantasy too?
The bank, at its discretion or under order by government, can and will prevent the transfer of funds, so it's really just a case of Murphy's law.
I don't know why there has to be appeal to "fetish fantasies". Is it so hard for you to imagine a scenario where you or others might unjustly be the target of nefarious actions by public or private parties who would wield the bureaucracy of banking system against you? This isn't a hypothetical, one of things opposing counsel does in a lawsuit involving money is to attempt to freeze or restrict your accounts.
You may have never been in a situation where a bank prevents you from moving money, but it happens, and the worldview you are espousing doesn't survive first contact with such a situation.
But you don't have to take my word for it. There's a reason the market for gold ingots exists, and it isn't just to guard against inflation.
You trust some entity you have never personally audited, to produce some pieces of paper that you are supposed to trust...
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?
Please provide your reference.
The answer to this is very simple: none of your business.
I take strong issue with the word "need." Why do you need that car? That television? That four bedroom house? Why do you need that bow and arrow? For sport, you say? Why not play some ball game instead? Why do you need a chess set when you can play digitally online without killing a tree? Why do you need those fancy clothes? Why does your family need that Disney World vacation?
Let's limit your life choices to what someone else decides that you "need" and then ask if life is still worth living.
The fact is that freedom and liberty comes with it the ability to not have to explain or justify our life choices to others. Will bad people abuse it and do things you don't like? Yeah. That's the risk that comes with it and we have a legal system to identify and deal with those bad actors. A legal system that ought to exist to serve and promote liberty for the innocent, rather than eliminating it and destroying it for everyone out of fear and suspicion that some people might be up to no good some of the time.
So unless there is evidence of wrong-doing, it really is no one's business who they associate with, who they trade with, what they trade, how much they trade and why. And "need" has absolutely no relevance. "Because I want to" ought to be good enough.
The "none of your business" doesn't work in the long run.
Well, it should.
An anecdote: The 500 euro bank note was originally created because Germans had the habit of paying in cash, even for large purchases like cars, and they had a DM1,000 bank note (which is about EUR500).
There's way too much fraud around, government unfortunately cannot blindly trust everybody.
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.
Since when?
Maybe I just want to buy a handsome dog that won a show?
> 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
The argument for reporting is equivalent to "you have nothing to hide" and privacy. This is another aspect of privacy.
Furthermore, they don’t need the details. What if I just don’t want the government or bank to even know that I spent $10K at “Smucks Sex Store Co.”?
Anyway, I hope you’re starting to see the importance of privacy and cash. Even if they’re ridiculous and silly to someone else.
It feels like the entire continent is one big HOA, deciding what color you can paint your house, or what flowers you can plant outside, to “preserve congruency in the neighborhood”.
It’s honestly a bit concerning seeing how pacified and apathetic people become about government overreach when it doesn’t affect them directly (yet).
I guess it comes down to perspective: is it fair to force everyone to pay their taxes?
Americans hate laws like this in the US because we've already sacrificed liberties for security with things like The Patriot Act, and all it got us was our own government spying on it's citizens communication. Expanding the scope of how the government is allowed to forcibly direct or interfere in your life is generally a bad idea, even if the people you support politically make it look sexy and cool.
People get on the soap box for a passionate gospel about personal freedoms, facism and unalienable liberties - but actually they’re mostly mad that they gotta pay taxes for their nails & gardening now
Governments worldwide have been trending towards being more authoritarian, and I see outlawing cash purchases of any amount as an incredibly easy way to begin clamping down on the use of untraceable fiat currency.
Not all of us! Please trim your paintbrush. Europe comprises dozens of countries, with hundreds of millions of people.
My personal divorce from "banking with will-you-think-of-the-children-and-oh-all-the-nasty-criminals" here in CZ happened when I went to withdraw ~14k USD in cash. My Fio bank, that I've been with for 10+ years, asked me, "what do you need the money for?"
After collecting my jaw from the floor my answer was of course "none of your business". But the clerk claimed to be "just following the law" (maybe true, I wouldn't know on the spot), that they cannot give me my money without a valid reason.
So I said "I want to withdraw it in order to keep it in cash" (doh!). They made a face and said that's not a valid reason.
So I asked what is a valid reason then? Is there a list that I can see and choose from?
They made a face again and said no, but suggested – trying to be helpful – that most people say "I want to buy a car". Yet I wasn't buying a car and having to lie about this – being advised to lie so a bureaucrat can tick some children-saved-criminals-thwarted checkbox – felt quite surreal. A Kafka-esque exchange. Especially when everybody knows the real money laundering is done by government officials & government-adjacent crooks – in CZ and in every other country under the sun.
In the end I got angry and said I'm about to buy a lot of dog food and refused to budge. They backed down, and I learned a very important lesson about "my" money that day.
The problem is that things like cryptocurrency are largely designed to circumvent the financial and legal system entirely, which becomes a threat to regulated markets once fraudulent actors become large enough to inevitably become a burden to the legal system (see FTX). The government is spending a lot of money cleaning up the FTX mess and they have an interest in ensuring that it doesn’t happen again.
While we can indeed discuss whether it makes sense in most case to pay large sums in cash, this is not the issue. The issue is whether this should be illegal.
Some people hoard gold and jewellery, should that be illegal? Maybe I am hoarding cash and maybe that's not a great idea but in a free society people should be free to make their own decisions on this.
If you have $10,000, then you have $10,000.
If you deposit $10,000 in a bank, then you have $0 and a promise from a bank that has $1,000 and a promise (from somebody else) for $9,000.
Money you deposit in a bank is guaranteed by the state up to a certain limit (often 100 000€ per person per bank).
Source (french) : https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/educational/explainers/tell-me...
> Selon la réglementation européenne, ces systèmes assurent 100 000 euros par déposant. > (DeepL) According to European regulations, these systems guarantee 100,000 euros per depositor.
> If you have $10,000 then you have $10,000.
Playing devil's advocate: that's as long as the denomination doesn't change. Once it changes (for instance Cr$ -> NCr$ -> Cz$ -> NCz$ -> Cr$ -> CR$ -> R$, and I lived through most of these changes), and you're outside of a conversion grace period (when you can take your cash to a bank and exchange it for new notes), your cash is worthless; if I find an old Cr$ bill stashed somewhere (I probably still have some), they're not worth much more than the paper they're printed on. If your money is in a bank, on the other hand, it will always be converted automatically and transparently.
(On the other hand, I also lived through the infamous "confisco da poupança" which froze most of the money in everyone's bank accounts, so I can clearly see the importance of having money outside of the reach of banks. On a third hand, I also lived through the hyperinflation times, and know that having too much of your money not deposited in an interest-bearing bank account or other similarly good investment means it will lose its value quickly.)
Because I pay cash and keep the bankers out of the transaction it costs me less and it costs the seller less. I negotiate this ahead of time. Most people in business would rather have cash in hand than wait on the bank and pay their fees.
In EU you could pay for all those things with a quick and free bank transfer for any amount, so you wouldn't even need to withdraw and travel with all that cash on you. There's no "bank fees", there's no "bankers" to keep out of the transaction, because they don't take any fee.
Other way around (in the Netherlands, which is the subject), bank transfers are free but depositing cash as a business costs money. Paying cash costs the seller more and holding it has a risk of robbery.
Cheaper than handling cash though.
https://www.axerve.com/approfondimenti/insight/limite-pagame...
Apologies if that sounded rude but Its often that I see people claiming to be EU citizens or sympathizers dropping the most arrogant takes. To the point I prefer to browse this website after 7PM in my timezone to avoid "the EU-only HN time".
https://github.com/vexl-it/fti/blob/main/fti.pdf
Among other things, it shows Cash Limits in various countries:
Greece 500 EUR, Spain, Italy, France 1000 EUR, Israel 1500 EUR, ...
Unless maybe the link changed?
The data is well sourced and the code is open-source. You don't have to trust or rely on their authority. Don't trust, verify!
The plus side is that laws like this of course would prevent tax evasion. It would also mean you need to have a bank to make a living. While I'm not a fan of the creeping authoritarianism of a digital currency that's likely coming as well, it annoys me that so many people just mooch off of government services that the rest of us pay for.
The modern condition is not like that. Is it government taxation, money lending, fines and fees, whatever else? Or is it more like a system of middle-men who expand theirs at the expense of yours, at every turn of the game?
A vague complaint of "moochers" lacks context. There are those that are less able, those that have less to look for, and those that give in to lazy and selfish ways.. all of that, but in different social niches? There is no simple answer, but if you outlaw the path for the ordinary person to have rights, something is lost forever.
Islam has a 2.5% Zakat contribution amount for money, yet Islamic countries were very prosperous until colonization started post WWI, which continues to this day. Even today the Gulf states do not have these exorbitant taxes and they're doing quite well in the face of the capitalistic international financial system, even though they're heavily bitten by it.
Give people the choice to pay 2.5% of their cash holdings and other wealth vs. 35%-50%+ of their income and it's easy to see what they'll choose. But it doesn't sit well with the greedy and wasteful governments, nor the law makers and lobbyists who design the laws with loopholes to be abused by certain people.
It is not illegal though, and you can in fact pay arbitrary amounts of cash for instance at hospitals or jewellery stores, with PAN. I am okay with this oversight, though I'm not too happy about the middlemen. I can't think of any legitimate usecases where one wouldn't want to share PAN, unless they are underreporting income and evading taxes. While I'm often unhappy with how my tax money gets spent, I still begrudgingly pay my taxes and have no sympathy for black money.
We also have instant and free transfers via UPI, and I can transfer any amount, even 1 INR (Approx 1 cent EUR) to anyone. I make about a dozen upi transactions everyday, for practically everything. Roadside snacks to in mall purchases. This further reduces the need for carrying cash. There are only a few holdouts, such as bus tickets purchased on the spot, or the ocassional auto rikshaws that demand cash.
Even foriegn tourists now can "pay lik an Indian", with upi, to borrow marketing slogans from the airport adverts.
Transacting large amounts in cash(banknotes) is going to become increasingly difficult across the world, for better or worse.
I personally think they should just legalize and regulate a lot of the drugs which would be much more effective. People use drugs anyway, they generally do it in a safe way, it makes no sense to keep it illegal, it leaves the whole market to crime.
Legalize, regulate, and charge fat taxes. The crime problems are a symptom of our ridiculous drug laws. If we don't solve the root issue, measures like these will not change anything.
> A seller can decide not to accept cash above a certain amount. Or not accepting cash at all.
Why would not accepting cash at all be allowed? What is the other alternative? Mastercard, visa etc? If for example, a super market chain stops accepting cash and starts accepting only Visa, and for whatever reason I do not have a visa credit card, or worse I am banned by Visa,then I cannot buy groceries anymore? Also, I am not exactly sure everybody has access to a credit card. Maybe I am missing something here, but this seems a bit stupid/crazy to me.
I wonder what more this law is hoping to achieve? Stopping that one guy who buys 10 laptops with a bag of cash? The merchants are already required by law to report any transactions above a certain amount made by cash.. so it is nothing new.
If I sell my car on Marktplaats, I cannot accept cash? is that it?
They’re used by people of all age, as far as I can tell; the only time I witnessed a problem with it, was when a ~50 year old man had to pay me 600€ for stuff he bought, and I ended up having to take cash. Worth noting that person who paid me is a house painter, a job with a great potential for being paid cash to evade taxes to begin with…
I added in my original post links to wikipedia, if you want more details. The section “criticism” is quite funny: it works like cash money (no guarantees from the bank if you get scammed, it’s not a credit card), and there might be some downtime at some point (1 day/year in total).
Eg. "I will swap you this $50k car for this $50k bag of diamonds"
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...
Unless you run a business which accepts a lot of cash, the odds of you having that much cash on hand are slim. And even then, how often do you make a payment that big?
Of course, criminals don't care about these limits, so it's pretty much pointless.
https://www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-domov/smenarny-prani-spinavyc...
If he came "every few weeks" at 20 times a year, it would take him 80 years. A billion dollars really is a lot of money.
Perhaps he brought the money by wheelbarrow or car or container truck, or he dealt exclusively in €500 notes, so I suppose it's not completely unbelievable.
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.
I love Switzerland. Not that I have that much money, but I love this kind of freedom.
>Of course, being such a potentially lucrative target for thieves, each dispensary has security personnel who will only grant admission after ID is shown.
I assume the state law just doesn't allow anyone under 21 to be admitted.
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 behaviour. If one wants to make a "cash" (i.e. untraceable) transaction over €3000, it's not laws that are gonna stop them.
The viability of Bitcoin is correlated by how tight they pull the noose around cash. As an obnoxious crypto-anarchist, I welcome these laws, this is how the state will destroy its own currency in favour of the one that doesn't respect borders, limits and embargoes.
People will always favour the currency with the least amount of hoops to jump through.
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.
It was a good idea all along and the reason that "gold back currency does not fit a growing economy" is BS if not properly substantiated.
But its not anonymous, if you want consumer protection then you need a contract (thats how gold is traded, and has been for many many years)
You don't want to physically exchange gold, because verification of gold's value is super hard. In low volumes proving that you have the correct volume and purity is very difficult and expensive.
There was one called Liberty Reserve that was catching on, but predictably they were raided and shut down.
I find fiat currency pretty centralized as well. So centralization is not very gold specific. There're even some "gold on blockchain" going on, which would --to some extend-- solve that problem.
(Apparently their reasoning was something along the lines of: what if you want to buy a car?)
Meanwhile in Singapore we have a 10,000 dollar note (which is worth about 6,800 Euro at the moment.)
Strange bedfellows in the fight for freedom, but all welcome to the cause.
"Note: MAS has stopped issuing the following notes as a pre-emptive measure to reduce the potential money laundering and terrorism financing risks associated with large denomination notes:
The $1,000 notes with effect from 1 January 2021. The $10,000 notes with effect from 1 October 2014. Existing $10,000 and $1,000 notes in circulation remain legal tender in Singapore and can continue to be used as a means of payment for goods and services."
https://www.mas.gov.sg/currency/circulation-currency/circula....
Edit: Sure, large players of the underground market might accept euros, especially in inter-European trade. But good luck "banning" them from using such and such notes among themselves.
Most people apparently just respond to the first emotion that comes up…
Extreme distrust of the government, especially the American distrust of federal vs state government, doesn't really make sense in many European countries. Especially when the Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy. The most pro-cash anti-surveillance Europeans are Germany and Austria (traumas of hyperinflation, Nazis, and the Stasi).
But 3000 is pretty trivial and inflation makes it worse as well.
The end result seems to be the absolute desire of corporations and governments to have us control no actual money so they track everything while being absolutely non transparent themselves and can switch it off at their whim or, simply due to "system error", good luck going through the buteocratic process to get it back.
When it stops being about convenience and becomes forced, it's always a danger.
IMO, the only time this causes issue is when transacting private-to-private sales of big ticket items. Most likely something with a title (cars, boats, ATVs, trailers, etc, etc).
I really despise having to bring thousands of dollars of cash to buy a vehicle, but right now there just isn't a better way to do it. Sign the title, exchange the cash, and it's essentially a 100% guarantee the transaction works.
With a limit like this you need an arbitrator. Right now, there simply isn't a good way to do that.
I guess they can make it slightly more difficult for a drug dealer to buy a car or house, but my intuition is that corruption and money laundering deal with much higher numbers and can go around it.
Not that fighting 1 bad thing is wrong, but considering disadvantagedssuch as loss of privacy and (even) more reliance on banks, we must balance the pros and cons.
They take 3% of the transaction. Of course they have a vested interest in eliminating cash.
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.
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.
If currency note denominations were to keep up with inflation, today the Fed would be printing $3000 bills. Yet $100 is still all that we have, effectively making cash transactions less and less feasible every year.
https://www.axerve.com/approfondimenti/insight/limite-pagame...
Also as an immigrant with limited access to banking I personally may be limited in options to buy thihgs with my honestly earned money.
*electromagnetic pulse destroy electronic devices (no ATMs, card readers)
The cities will be awful places with death, destruction, and lawlessness.
Even assuming things like tractors etc. still work see how much yield local farmer will get once he can't get their fertilizers and pesticides shipped.
"harsh" is understatement, we're talking hundreds of millions dying from hunger within a year or two.
The Carrington Event is the "most recent" in 1859 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
That would in the 2000s cause serious damage
>In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd's of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the US used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the cost of a similar event in the present to the US alone at US$600 billion to $2.6 trillion (equivalent to $698 billion to $3.02 trillion in 2021[28]),[3] which, at the time, equated to roughly 3.6 to 15.5 per cent of annual GDP.
NOAA currently puts Carrington Events at a 1 in 500 year occurrence on Earth.
Does it need to be a natural disaster? Things like a widespread network failure, a major bank's systems going down for a while (happened not so long ago here), or even a country-wide blackout (we had one last week, triggered by a fault in a fault detection system mistakenly powering down a high-voltage transmission line, and for some yet to be determined reason that led to an instability which triggered other fault detection systems) can be a pain if you depend on an online system.
> The consumers can make cash payments without any limits.
> The traders, however, need to register themselves with tax authorities as 'High Value Dealers' if accepting cash payments in excess of €10,000
No, it is 5,000 in 2023 and never was 1,000:
In the linked post there is a link to this (Italian):
https://www.axerve.com/approfondimenti/insight/limite-pagame...
Where it is detailed.
Many eu countries alreadt have such limits , and I think it's fine to require that for legal transactions. After all the tax man has eyes everywhere already.
https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cas...
More interesting in my opinion are new proposed EU laws standardising money laundering laws in the EU, which seems to include a 10,000€ transaction limit for cash transactions...[2]
[1]https://www.lto.de/recht/juristen/b/barzahlung-verbot-immobi... (in German)
[2]https://www.dw.com/en/the-eu-declares-war-on-money-launderin...
In Canada, during COVID Lockdowns they prevented the unvaccinated from getting on planes or trains, or buses. And required truckers to get the shot to drive their trucks.
The truckers protested, so the government froze the protestor's accounts and many of those who that donated to them. So people started to give them cash so they can feed themselves and continue the protest. Literally without cash, these people would be on the brink of bankruptcy and starvation.
In fact, only criminals and various vaguely detestable elements of society insist on using cash. I know this because <large_media_conglomerate> and <government_agency> told me so. I'm not a bad person. I don't want my friends and coworkers to think I'm a bad person. Let's all just do what our surrogate parental figures say, it's really for the best.
Because any article that talks about Terrorism yet fails to account Jeffrey Epstein style honey-pot operations which implicated people such as Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, etc... is really meaningless to me.
Justice does not exist when Laws are selectively enforced, and propagandized with "muh terrorism" or "think of teh children" by the same governments which are complicit in negligence towards massive crimes happening in the underworld of world government leaders.
It's not a lot of money, and given inflation, diminishingly so. This is targeted at law abiding smallholding farmers where roadside transactions are often done in cash and farmers everywhere have a lot of tax relief precisely because they provide food security for nations - and it's to the benefit of criminal networks to top it off. The architects of this policy are disgusting.
Are these migrants frequently making cash payments in excess of €3000?
Also, it doesn't matter whether it's frequent or not. "Let's ban migrants from buying cars because they don't buy them frequently" is not exactly the most convincing argument.
Also, what kind of illegal immigrant rents a >€3000/month home?
It's not necessarily easy for migrants to open bank accounts. Sometimes it's even impossible.
Even for me, I assure you that opening a bank account would not be easy (or maybe even possible) due to stricter requirements in recent years, even though I've never done anything illegal (to my knowledge) and I'm not a migrant.
I know this because I've looked into many banks with the intention of opening an account and the requirements are all similar between them. This is in two different European countries.
And well, for the past couple of days I've been trying to set up an automatic monthly bank transfer for my rent and my bank is not allowing me because it's "exceeding the daily allowable limit", even though it's way below the daily allowable limit that I've ran into multiple times for normal bank transfers.
So there's that.
> Also, what kind of illegal immigrant rents a >€3000/month home?
Rents have gone up considerably in European capitals and consider that multiple immigrant families can live under the same (larger) roof.
Inflation will also eat up these limits over time, as governments almost never increase cash limits according to inflation (even though they do it for many, many other things).
Also, the limits are lower in some countries (500 EUR in Greece, 1000 EUR in Spain). I know for a fact that it's almost impossible to get a decent place in the center of Madrid for less than 1000 EUR nowadays.
But drug wholesalers only exist thanks to low and intermediate drug dealers.
Getting around the limitations of cash is no problem for those on the inside. Just like tax havens are only an option for the super wealthy who wouldn't really need them in the first place.
Can you explain why this alone isn't a win?
You're paying 3000 Euro for eggs?
Paying your various-shades-of-grey farmhands is another story.
And that's what farmers are annoyed at. If they don't deposit it, they can "forget" to report the income themselves, and cheat the tax man.
Well, for one, they control cash production
> It's not a lot of money, and given inflation, diminishingly so. This is targeted at law abiding smallholding farmers where roadside transactions are often done in cash and farmers everywhere have a lot of tax relief precisely because they provide food security for nations - and it's to the benefit of criminal networks to top it off. The architects of this policy are disgusting.
Do you have any actual example of that ? What transaction do small farmers need to do along roadside for thousands of eur ? As kid of small farmer I don't remember anything like that ever happening.
Can you please not make shit up to be obsessed about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#European_Unio...
How is that unreasonable and more importantly what does it have to do with the €3000 limit discussed in this thread?
Whether a conviction occurs in court is largely irrelevant, because it's in excess of the 3000 limit that this law actually puts in place, and therefore de jure illegal.
In the U.S., no conviction of the owner is even necessary, since the conviction is of the cash itself. This is likely coming to EU as well because it's a easy way for the enforcement state to increase its coffers and, in theory, stop money laundering.
I don't get it, do you not understand the difference between possessing a certain amount of cash and making a single payment over a certain amount in cash?
How do you make a logical leap from the latter to the former?
The way you read laws isn't how the enforcers need to read it. That isn't a US specific issue.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1acd50be-5237...
Any sources which would substantiate this claim?
Mind you, this is a poor country. The middle class in the capital city can't even dream of making what these farmers make.
Same for livestock, butchering, services and so on.
In the EU you can transfer the money instantly using your phone.
Not that I agree with the ban but a lot of the issues people are discussing here are only relevant in the US (checks? lol.. what is this the 60s?)
- hay / feed delivery
- combine/equipment rental
- equipment resale
- livestock
- farm vehicle sales / repair
It's probably fine, and I hear you can eat bugs.
Not that I agree with this ban. I really don’t but focusing on farmers specifically is very strange when farming is so heavily commercialized, especially in the Netherlands.
This is as old as countries themselves. You must be intellectually dishonest to ignore these historically crucial patterns.
But yeah, if you’re not a citizen and don’t live in the EU it might be tricky (then again AFAIK bringing large amounts of cash from a third country is not that straightforward either).
What does this have to do with Dutch farmers, though?
For paper mails some shelters allow for picking up post and in some countries you can get the mail as "Poste Restante" (i.e. pick up at post office).
Also, again, how is this specifically harming farmers more than anyone else?
All of the above are very likely done electronically in Netherlands.
Denmark has an even lower limit (€2700) and there has been no problems with this. Denmark no longer supports payments using checks.
I've never heard of anybody being paid wages in cash in Denmark. It's so uncommon that the Danish IRS even had to explain it is actually possible to do so.
It's illegal to pay minimum wage in cash, due to employers abusing and underpaying vulnerable people. (Any amount over the minimum wage can be paid cash, but there has to be a bank payment made for at least the minimum wage.)
Source: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/aanpak-schijnconstr...
> - hay / feed delivery
> - combine/equipment rental
> - livestock
> - farm vehicle sales / repair
B2B transactions like that are done by billing. The other side wouldn't normally be very receptive to a cash payment.
Interesting. In France, you can ask for your wages to be paid cash, but only if it's not more than €1500. Minimum wage as of May 1st 2023 is €1383.08.
So sounds like exactly the kind of transaction this law is supposed to block. working as intended.
While each transaction might be <3000, on a good weekend, I could see it totaling to be over that amount. At this point, would it be illegal for the farmer to show up to his bank to deposit 3001? Does the farmer now need to waste time to make 2 separate trips to make each deposit < 3000? Maybe take the spouse and kids along so they each make a smaller deposit? Does this require visiting multiple branches?
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?
Also have you heard about bookeping? It’s also a thing that has existed for thousands of years.
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"
Buy yeah, some banks in the EU might be overzealous and small/medium businesses can often run into issues related to their idiotic fraud prevention systems. But I don’t see how is that an issue with the system itself and not with the implementation.
How would supermarket function otherwise?
The farmer isn't an individual, it's a business as well.
Only it’s very weird to just assume that this might apply to bank deposits…
Is it? I find it weird you think so. If you and I exchange > 3000 between us, nobody will ever know, so the law is pointless. The one place that this can be policed is at the bank level. You're assumption seems to be that if you gave me 3000, I'd just keep it in cash.
In the US, if you make a deposit > $10,000, the bank is regulated to report it. It doesn't matter why you are making that deposit, it gets reported. Applying the same thing to Euro markets only seems natural.
Edit: Actually, even car dealerships have to report someone showing up to buy a car with >$10,000 in cash as well.
We might focus on the law itself and not some hypothetical situation.
> nobody will ever know, so the law is pointless.
You can’t sign a contract for anything worth more than €3000 if you want to pay in cash. If you want to declare your income, pay taxes, prove that you obtained the money legally when you later want to deposit it to an bank, during a tax audit etc. Of course it won’t affect transactions which are already done illegally so it depends on what do you mean by ‘pointless’.
The $10k limit is also a thing in Europe, the exact amount varies by state though (I think).
In the US, that's called structuring and will result in some very uncomfortable conversations.
They have the euro as do most countries in the EU so they don't control cash production.
Electronic transfers such as ACH would be allowed.
You misunderstand.
We are talking hard paper cash here. It might help if we quote a translated excerpt here :
This practice is now being abolished by the introduction of Sec. 16a GwG. From 1 April 2023, it will only be possible to purchase real estate using means of payment other than cash, crypto assets, gold, platinum or precious stones. All parties to the transaction are required to present satisfactory proof of payment, for example a payment confirmation from a financial institution.
(source of excerpt https://www.gvw.com/en/news/blog/detail/prohibition-on-cash-...)
My friend worked for an insurance company that would regularly receive double digit thousands cash payments on policies from pot farms because they can't have bank accounts.
One of my banks forbids making bank transfers of over 10,000 EUR. The other is not far behind.
Even then, sometimes they simply decide that they're not going to allow you to make bank transfers to certain perfectly legitimate accounts. There is no way to override that.
For the past couple of days I've been trying to set up an automatic monthly transfer for paying my rent and my bank is not allowing me because it's "exceeding the allowable daily limit", even though I haven't done any transfers or significant payments lately, and my rent is way below the 10,000 EUR limit.
You also can't withdraw large sums of money easily.
Furthermore, even when they allow these large transfers (which presumably would require you to physically visit a branch which might be in a different country or even continent), it's not uncommon to charge a not insignificant percentage of that money as a fee. This is significantly more common for large transfers than for small ones.
Large inbound transfers can be even more of a hassle, as banks often require you to provide documents justifying why you're receiving that money, which not only might be difficult in some cases (even when you're not doing anything illegal), but also invades your privacy and can be a significant security risk in some situations.
All of this basically makes banks a prison for your money, which not even you can access easily.
And besides, all that is assuming that you are even able to open a bank account.
There are many reasons for why opening a bank account is hard or even impossible in many cases.
And believe me, this doesn't happen in just one or two banks, it's quite common procedure in practically every bank, and increasingly so.
It's in the two countries in Europe where I've lived.
> if I call my bank and tell them I need to transfer 500,000 to buy a house they will allow it
What you're saying is not possible in the banks I've used.
To buy houses in recent years, I've had to set up appointments and physically go to the central office of one of the banks, and to a local branch of another. They provided me with a special bank-issued cheque for the transaction.
In one of the cases, this required me to travel to another country just for this purpose.
It was a significant hassle and even then I was lucky that this was in an adjacent country. It could have easily been in the other side of the world.
> The limit is there is to prevent fraud.
Right... fraud... of course!
Is that why one of the banks only allows me to set up a 5 digit password (yes, only numbers) to access my account? And why the other one only allows me to set up a 6 digit password (again, only numbers)?
Is that also why they require me to dictate this same password (as well as other personal details) over the phone when I want to make a large transaction? So that other people who are physically near me can hear the password easily?
And that's even assuming I typed their phone number correctly in my phone, otherwise I would be giving my password to strangers unknowingly!
Look, I really don't care if it's fraud, or money laundering laws, or because the Pope mandated it. I've never been a victim of fraud, it's extremely unlikely for me to ever be a victim of fraud in the future, I'm not doing anything illegal and it's my money.
There are many other ways to deal with fraud, such as having most of the money locked (e.g. in a separate account, with more restrictions or delays), providing notifications, using two-factor authentication, calling the customers to confirm the transaction, etc, etc.
And yes, I know in many banks (including mine) they also do a subset of these, but even then the restrictions are still there.
I'm sorry, but fraud alone does not explain what's happening, unless the banks are extremely incompetent (and yes, it's quite possible that they are).
Regardless, the end result is the same: I simply cannot use my money easily, period.
Farmers are declaring their own tax relief.
Where (in NL) do you find farmers who routinely need to accept >3k in cash and are (somehow?) unable to accept electronic payments? Pretty much everyone everywhere can accept at least one form of electronic payments. That's a legal requirement for any business in Belgium, and I can't imagine the Dutch being that far behind on that ...
Even if you can't take card or contactless payments or apps, you can do instant bank transfers with most banks within the EU ("Instant Payments"), either free of charge or pretty cheap. There's no excuse for being unable to accept non-cash money. There are, however, plenty of reasons to be unwilling, but that's another story.
The measures used to keep various peasant and serf classes under control were so extreme in history because if they became able to exercise that power the social order was overturned.
That sounds pretty expensive and a lot of "real food" for the average person.
And if it is a business transaction sounds like a suspicious business transaction.
Most EU nations are setting up instant payment systems for these and other "informal" use cases. In Sweden you can buy strawberries at a sidewalk stall and pay through Swish [0]. I should also stress that, no matter how bad Swedish inflation is at the moment, it's very unlikely that you will ever spend >3k EUR (about 35k SEK) on strawberries :)
A black market for cash already exists. The people who buy it are called money launderers.
If you want the convenience of a government backed currency you’ll need to do so digitally which makes fraud investigation a lot easier. Don’t like it? Bad luck. This is where every fair economy is heading.
The results will be known sooner or later.
The problem with black markets is they function because the money they trade in has real world value. If you taint significant sums so they can't be used to buy assets (3k is a lot of money for a single transaction, thanks) you make it harder to benefit from crime.
And I don't understand why you're explicitly defending tax evading smallholders. Because farms? Even smallholders can declare and deduct expenses.
On your first point, some countries allow asylum seekers to work, and even if they don't, some tax systems allow them to declare income even if they're not really allowed to have any. I'm definitely in favour of making sure everyone works to the same rule, so everyone can live honestly.
Cash-in-hand work has to die.
"Money Laundering Action Plan Act
Amendment of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act in connection with the ban on cash payments for goods from 3,000 euros and the expansion of the options for information exchange for the gatekeeper function."
From https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/wetsvoorstellen/deta..., translated by Chrome/Google Translate.
> Amendment of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act in connection with the prohibition of cash payments for goods from 3,000 euros and the expansion of the possibilities for information exchange for the gatekeeper function.
> https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/wetsvoorstellen/deta...
Yup. Another anti-terrorism bill aimed at the general populace, instead of terrorists.
And the Russian olicharch/maffia sanction evasions in Amsterdam while we're at it. Why not?
Just ban cash! Poof all those problems gone!
With that said - are reasonable people suggesting that restricting private wealth is a social response to vice?
Immediately think to yourself, in a wealthy society, this institutionalizes third party oversight of individual money. Who benefits from that today? Now, who might be pushing this kind of legislation ?
This is not the path forward in a free society.
Firstly its a fucktonne of cahs sloshing around being laundered, which has a bunch of nasty petty crime sideffects. but also the literal tonnes of toxic waste that keeps on popping up everywhere.