Replies

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Me, too.

Buried in the more than 300 pages of the new law is a provision that "any person engaged in a trade or business" has to file a government report if a customer spends $10,000 or more in cash. The threshold is cumulative and applies to multiple purchases if they're somehow related -- three $4,000 pieces of furniture, for example, might trigger a filing.

The $10,000 threshold, established by the Bank (Anti-)Secrecy Act of 1970, has never been raised. Adjusted for inflation, the $10,000 minimum of nearly 32 years ago was equivalent to an approximate $45,000 minimum in 2000.

Last year, when legislooters were pushing HR 3886 (International "Know Your Customer") the Congressional Budget Office had to prepare an analysis of the bill's compliance costs, as that bill represented yet another unfunded mandate (a vital component of a fascist system). The estimated increased-cost imposition, for banks and financial institutions alone, was guessed to fall below the annual threshold allowed by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), but, according to the CBO, "because compliance costs would depend directly on specific standards...established by the Secretary of the Treasury, CBO [could not] make that determination with confidence." (So much for the notion of representative government and a system of checks and balances, right? (Non-elected secretary of treasury=king?))

Given that the CBO figure of increased costs, for US banks and financial institutions alone (or, in actuality, the customers thereof) was in the neighborhood of $109 million per year, can you even begin to imagine what the figures will be for virtually all retail business in the US? (Now, there's an effective shot in the arm for an ailing economy. </sarcasm>)

Lest we forget:

In 1998, the total cost of combating money laundering in the US was more than $10 billion for the public and private sectors combined. Despite the additional filings of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), required as of 1996 and averaging about 10,000 per month, 1998 saw only 932 money-laundering convictions, representing a cost of more than $10 million per conviction. [Source]

Close enough, for government work?

ROFLMAO, indeed.
{"I get these--ooh-ooh--suspicions"}

The real object of despotism is revenue.—Thomas Paine