Not doing anything illegal. What comes with the “flagging”?
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So if a guy withdraws 30k cash out of his savings, it gets reported. Then what?
In theory some IRS examiner reviews it to determine if you're up to no good, or if it seems to match an established pattern of ungood actions. If you did that from 3 separate banks in a short time, that could theoretically happen, and they'd sic an IRS detective on you.
But in practice: nothing happens. The 10K limit was set up decades ago (70s?), and they never checked it even back then. If you get arrested, they'll dredge up the records later to see if they can add money laundering to whatever they accuse you of.
The system is set up so that law enforcement can be lazy, and to encourage citizens to report on each other: they are happy to fine an honest banker for failing to file the report (i.e., for not snitching on you), but if the same banker reports an actual crime detected this way by adding a suspicious activity report, it's a coin toss (probably less than 50-50) as to whether they'll do anything at all. I once filed a report on someone with outstanding arrest warrants from other jurisdictions, who was actively and obviously scamming people, where all law enforcement had to do was show up to arrest him: I got a call back from the IRS dude over 3 years later. Gov't snooping at its finest.
Makes sense.
I sold a used mercedes kompressor once and the guy showed up with about 40K in cash. He asked me to keep it quiet since he was on the county board of supervisors.