Hi,
Could you explain structuring more. Does that mean they view it as bad if you have money spread around in different banks. I have four accounts with different banks, due to the FDIC limits. Is this a red flag to the IRS now?
The IRS requires banks and other businesses to report cash transactions of $10,000 and up. One way for drug dealers and other criminals to get around this was to break up their cash deposits to different banks, for example, $5,000 to Bank A, $5,000 to Bank B. Dividing up criminal proceeds in this manner is called “structuring”. To deal with this practice, banks are required to report multiple transactions to the IRS. I don’t know all the particulars of what they have to report.
Now, even assuming my rich uncle gave me $10,000 in cash for my birthday, and I took it down to the bank to deposit, they’d still have to report it to the IRS. Doesn’t mean I did anything wrong, just means the IRS wants to know about it, and may or may not keep an eye on me.
No, you’re doing that for a common, rational, obvious, and legal purpose. And you’re sending the money to US banks for investment under your own name (i.e. transferring from you to you), not to mysterious shell companies. Regardless of the amounts involved in any one transaction or coordinated series of transactions, there is nothing suspicious about people spreading out their savings to stay within FDIC limits. Now if you start making a series of $4900 wire transfers from those accounts to mysterious shell corporations, you’ll definitely get reported.