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You should always have assets at multiple banks and have lots of cash stored outside of the banking system (in a safety deposit box, at home, in car, etc).

*note: be careful about how you accumulate said cash. CTRs are generated if you withdraw too quickly.



note: be careful about how you accumulate said cash. CTRs are generated if you withdraw too quickly.

This is very bad advice, as it's illegal in the US to intentionally evade CTRs by aggregating smaller transactions. It's known as structuring:

http://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-026-013.html

Also, CTRs aren't inherently a bad thing, and they aren't generated behind your back. If you hit the $10k reporting limit, it's a simple one-page form, and you're on your way. Legitimate businesses are required to complete them all the time.

Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are filed at the discretion of the institution, are secret, and are independent of the transaction amount. Withdraw $9,990 and you'll probably have a SAR under your name instead of a CTR. Ditto if your deposit smells like drugs, or if you're dealing in large amounts of currency as an individual, and the bank staff can't determine why.


If you are interested in taking out 100K this year, nothing is illegal about withdrawing 2K per week as opposed to taking out 100K at once.


Unless you're doing it evade reporting requirements.

Taking out 100k in currency within a year will look very suspicious -- financial institutions run regular look-back reports designed to find this kind of thing.

Were a bank officer to ask, I don't think there's any problem with telling the truth, "I'm stockpiling currency, and am contributing to this stockpile on a regular basis to coincide with income."


For anyone else who didn't know what CTR stood for here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report


Had a similar episode back in the nineties with the state of California franchise tax board. Before they froze my Wells Fargo account, I transferred my balance to a new ETrade account . They never did anything with that new account because I suspect they didn't have the account info. They had the wells fargo account info because I had previously paid taxes via bank draft. Moral of the story, avoid giving up your account info if possible when paying taxes. Use a credit card.


I wonder if a weekly withdraw/deposit of 10k in cash would provide some identity protection, if the feds are constantly watching all of your financial activity.


I agree. Far too many people I know keep less than $20 in cash on them, with nothing at all in their houses/apartments.




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