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Please give me a litigimate reason why a lawabiding person would want to pay $10,000 in cash for anything, other than just to show he could..

My post from antoher thread :

I have an older relative who came up during the depression. At any time you can find him with $1800 in his wallet and $900 in his sock. I bet you anything, if you were to go through his house, you would find at least $10,000 stashed in the house. We have tried to tell him it is stupid to keep so much cash, but to no avail. Suppose he decided to listen to us (i.e. hell froze over) & gathered up the money to take it to the bank or even make a purchase with it (a car or a trip,).

Well, thanks to the Patriot Act, if he does gather up this cash and takes it to any business, he is to be reported to the appropriate agencies. Imagine that, he might be a terrorist or a drug dealer. This man in his 80's that worked his fingers to the bone his whole life will now be investigated by government agencies because of what he might be. Oh yeah, he has hunting rifles. Guns and large amounts of cash. Imagine a sneak & peak in the home of this 80 year old couple. Let's hope the stress of having to deal with something like that doesn't kill them before they get to a judge to argue their rights.

I agree that your scenario is quite possible. I have many older clients in similar circumstances. Where we disagree is in the result. Many provisions in the Patriot Act are not new law. If your elderly relative had purchased a car last year with cash, that would have been reported. (I am not saying that is a good thing, I am telling you what the law already was.) I have had clients make such purchases. NONE of them has ever been contacted by a governmental agency asking them to explain ANYTHING.

Even if the government were inclined to act like the Gestapo many people on this thread seem to fear, they don't have the time or the resources to follow up on every cash purchase. (I know many people are going to disagree with that last statement and tell me all the examples they know, have ever heard of, or made up. Please save the bandwidth. I have stated my opinion and it is based on 30 years of personal experience dealing with the government. I believe you are all entitled to your opinion. I ask you allow me mine.)