Comment on What if a billionaire wants to help you?

• spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  if there’s additional suspicious activity

  Emphasis on this part. Either way, what you’re describing is generally for tax purposes. Going back to the original question of the thread, if I had billions of dollars and wrote a stranger a check, the bank is highly unlikely to make sure I meant it. At most they may report it to the government to make sure I pay gift taxes (which are paid by the giver, not the recipient, and even they apply far above $10,000 but you still need to report it at that level)

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  • hddsx@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The receiver pays taxes over a given tax years allowance in addition to the tax paid by the giver.

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  • litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in the USA are made to track both potential tax evasion and money laundering. This is where the $10k cash “limit” comes from, but SARs can/should be filed for higher amount that create suspicion.

    Someone depositing a check for multiple times their lifetime transactions total would absolutely create suspicion on themselves, especially if it was a personal check. But if it were a business check from “ABC Mortgage Escrow”, that’s probably legit but a bank clerk is well within their rights to flag it.

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    • spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Flagging just means the money laundering team would investigate the source, determine that it doesn’t have other red flags, and quietly move on.

      Exactly. Staying with OP’s hypothetical situation, potential investigation on its own does not mean it can’t happen. It just means there may be an extra step behind the scenes, very possibly without either party’s knowledge anything even happened. More importantly, if the benefactor insists on some dodgy payment method that’s an even clearer sign of BS because a normal bank doesn’t give as much of a shit as OP lets on

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