There's way too much fraud around, government unfortunately cannot blindly trust everybody.
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).
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
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.
The argument for reporting is equivalent to "you have nothing to hide" and privacy. This is another aspect of privacy.
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.
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.