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Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

In Canada, and I think the US we cannot cross the border with > 10k in cash (edit: more if you declare it as mentioned below). The law has been there for as long as I can remember, be I sure purchasing power of 10k has gone down by at least a factor of 4-10 over the life of the law. All regulation type laws need sunset clauses and all dollar amounts should be inflation linked. The government shouldn't be able to scam more powers like this.

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You can cross the US border with more than $10k, you just have to report it:

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/money

But I agree with the general principal that this should be inflation indexed.

> You can cross the US border with more than $10k

To be honest, just because you can (legally), doesn't mean you should (do it). Carrying cash in the US is dangerous, and not just because of regular street thugs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

They do not need to prove anything to seize your money. Stealing from people carrying too much cash on them has become a national past time of the police in the US. There are police departments that rely on this to provide them with funding :

https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-131/how-crime-pays-th...

> In some Texas counties, forfeitures fund nearly 40% of police budgets.53 The Cook County, Illinois state’s attorney’s office’s 2016 budget anticipated $4.96 million in forfeiture revenues, which it earmarked to pay forty-one full-time employees’ salaries and benefits.54 But forfeiture proceeds are not just used for policing activities; with little accountability, law enforcement officials have also spent them on extravagancies like expensive dinners, parties, and personal expenses.55

> As a result, the decision to pursue a forfeiture is often governed not by justice, but by “department wish lists.”56 Police civil forfeiture trainings include instruction on “maximizing profits, defeating the objections of so-called ‘innocent owners’ . . . , and keeping the proceeds in the hands of law enforcment.

It's often talked about here :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975143

> And over time, across all 50 states and the federal government, those small sums add up: between 2000 and 2019, according to IJ’s calculations, authorities seized roughly $69 billion from people, most of whom were not even charged with a crime.

All it takes is "mmh, this guy has suspicious cash, and we need some funding, let's steal it and say it must have come from drug deals, while not actually charging the owner with any crime".

Offtopic: I'm baffled that this kind of open robbery is completely legal and there's. Practically nothing that can be done to recover your money. This among other crazy "normal" things in US make me extremely wary of even visiting.

I think the law technically states that you have to declare, if you have more cash. It's not directly forbidden, is it?

I believe above 10k, you're just required to have a source for the 10k. One of my buddies in college brought his entire school tuition in a suitcase over when he started school and it caused a bit of a shit show because he had to go back home and get proof to release the money or something like that. He came from a wealthy family so he had never ran into that before.

You can't leave the US carrying more than $5 in nickels and pennies though.

https://moneyweek.com/33401/why-its-now-illegal-to-melt-down...

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2007/04/16/E7-7088...

From one of your links:

> The United States Mint nevertheless acknowledges the concerns raised by the commenters. Therefore, the exception provided for in the current regulation at section 82.2(a)(2) has been amended to reasonably accommodate these concerns by allowing exportation of 5-cent and one-cent coins having an aggregate face value of up to $25 when it is clear that the purpose for exporting such coins is for legitimate personal numismatic, amusement, or recreational use.

It's still a weirdly low limit.

I have heard of someone (on a talk show) crossing over with a large amount of gold coins. Since the coins (the Gold Loonie) has a nominal face value of something like 200 CAD - he just told the customs that he was bringing over the nominal face value of the coins. This only works with coins not rounds, as rounds are not legal tender and maybe that is why rounds trade at a discount to coins?

I'm virtually certain that is illegal. Usually the rules are about currency or negotiable instruments or whatever and gold would count. Deceiving custom officials is not the same as legally bringing something across the border.

You can (of course) cross the border with more than $10k in cash. You have to declare it.

Which can be seized at the border unless you also bring all the necessary paperwork to demonstrate provenance.

This is one of those things that sounds simple, but in practice, YMMV.

Which is funny because I can cross any border with 12 words in my head containing stablecoins.

Which becomes a problem once you try to cash them in.

I think that the crypto end game, in their eyes, is to never have to cash them in.

Why would you never cash in stablecoins? They are used for payments

Do you consider sending them to another person cashing them in? I'm referring to bob's stablecoin -> bob's fiat -> alice's payment, and suggesting that their goal is bob's stablecoin -> alice's stablecoin, and avoiding the stablecoin->fiat (cashing in) phase entirely.

I mean, yeah. If the entire world transacted in stablecoins, it would be a much much better UX.

Right, this is what I was saying in the original comment. You exchange peer to peer but never cash them in.

It would probably be quite abysmal, considering the deflationary nature of most cryptocurrencies. Which stablecoin provider do you trust to secure your wealth at this point? After the downfall of FTX, Tether, Luna, Celsius, etc., who in the space can anyone trust? Which is the real sleight of hand of the entire "trustless" Crypto ecosystem...

> After the downfall of FTX, Tether, Luna, Celsius, etc., who in the space can anyone trust?

You're talking about centralized grifting as your examples and I'm glad they failed (well, technically Tether hasn't failed, yet).

If you are 'trusting' those companies... that is the problem. The point is that you shouldn't have to trust those companies, or the government, with your money.

Why would that be a problem? I can just deposit them like I normally do and use VISA or PayPal while international.

Or you could just carry the credit card and pay at the end of the month, skipping the business with 'stablecoins'.

The entire thread is about people not being able to go across borders with x amount of cash without declaring it. I could walk across a border with 100k in stablecoins and never declare it, and then have immediate access to those funds like I would cash. My point is to show the absurdity of these kinds of laws.

You could also just carry a bank card across borders and withdraw cash when you land, no need to play around with known scams :)

How is USDC a scam? Or how about DAI? Also, when I say stablecoins, I am also referring to CBDC's. Anyways, not everyone has a bank account (your viewpoint is very Western centric) and having to withdraw cash in a foreign country is just poor UX in the digital age.

And what about refugees fleeing war, like Ukrainians in 2022. There were many many cases where Ukrainians had zero access to their banks while in Poland. Having 12 words, or a set of 5 trusted guardians would be a much better way of securing your wealth than trusting some third party custodian in a city under siege.

Not commenting on the absurdity, but (untraceable) physical cash is what's forbidden. And governments are going after anonymous asset ownership systems like crypto for the same reason. They want control, and visibility into monetary movemnts.

And I can access my bank account after crossing the border as well.

I think you can, you just must declare carring the cash if it's more than $10k.

What happens if you declare it? Could they confiscate it without due process, like the police can in many states?

If you don't declare it, it's guaranteed to be confiscated until you prove a legitimate purpose for the > $10,000.

Federal authorities generally have a higher standard of behavior than local or state police, although obviously not in every instance. If you try to cross the border with $500,000 declared, they may have some questions for you.

I was under the impression if you don’t declare it then there is no legal burden on the government to return it to you, whether you have a reasonable explanation or not. Whereas if you declare it and have a reasonable story/sufficient paperwork they can’t/shouldn’t take it.

The point being that in cases where there is no funny business (at least in your opinion), you are strictly better off declaring it than taking your chances on not doing so.

I feel a lot more comfortable wiring the money or using checks or so on than traveling across a border with that kind of cash.

>Whereas if you declare it and have a reasonable story/sufficient paperwork they can’t/shouldn’t take it.

The law in the US is that, the police can take anything they want from you, with zero judicial process needed, slap it into their department's slush fund, buy whatever toys they want, or even as someone posted above, MAKE IT PART OF THEIR YEARLY BUDGET PROCESS TO "EXPECT" MILLIONS IN STOLEN MONEY, and unless you can AFFIRMATIVELY PROVE in a court of law that you obtained the property through zero criminal or near criminal activity, you will never get it back

I was under the impression you were still allowed you just had to fill out a form.

You can enter the US carrying as much money as you’d like. Can’t speak for Canada.

Yes but no. Yes you can enter carrying as much cash, but no you cannot freely enter with over $10k in cash, they need to be reporter to the US Custom and Border Protection before entering the country https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-195?language=en_US

Does “freely enter” have a legal definition? Because you are “free to enter” but need to declare. Just like you are “free to enter” but need to declare if you have an orange you purchased from the States making a return journey back into the States.

All travelers entering the US must complete the customs declaration forms.

'complete' doesn't mean 'enter the amount of change in your pocket, and small amount of holiday spending money rolled up in your socks' though. GP's right that you only have to declare certain things, a completed form can be 'nothing to declare', which obviously doesn't mean 'I am entering nude with no belongings'.

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